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PHILOSOPHY 
OF  ANCIENT  INDIA 


GARBE 


RICHARD 


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THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT 
INDIA 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


The  Redemption  of  the  Brahman.  A Novel  of 
Indian  Life.  Pages  96.  Laid  paper.  Veg.  parch, 
binding,  gilt  top,  75  cents.  Paper  binding,  25 
cents. 


THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO. 


THE 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA 


RICHARD  GARBE 

PROFESSOR  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TUEBINGEN 


CHICAGO 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


(LONDON:  17  JOHNSON’S  COURT,  FLEET  ST.,  E.  C.) 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

The  Open  Court  Publishing  Co. 
1897. 


table  of  contents. 

PAGE 

Brief  Outline  of  a History  of  Indian  Philosophy i 

The  Connexion  Between  Greek  and  Indian  Philosophy  ...  32 

Hindu  Monism.  Who  Were  Its  Authors,  Priests  or  Warriors  ? 57 

Index 87 


brief  outline  of  a hlstory  of 

INDIAN  PHILOSOPFIY. 


DISTINCTIVE  leaning  to  metaphysical  specu- 


lation is  noticeable  among  the  Indians  from  the 
earliest  times.  Old  hymns  of  the  Rigveda,  which  in 
other  respects  are  still  deeply  rooted  in  the  soil  of 
polytheism,  show  already  the  inclination  to  compre- 
hend multifarious  phenomena  as  a unity,  and  may 
therefore  be  regarded  as  the  first  steps  in  the  path 
which  led  the  old  Indian  people  to  pantheism.  Mo- 
notheistic ideas  also  occur  in  the  later  Vedic  hymns, 
but  are  not  developed  with  sufficient  logic  to  displace 
the  multiform  world  of  gods  from  the  consciousness 
of  the  people 

The  properly  philosophical  hymns,  of  which  there 
are  few  in  the  Rigveda,  and  not  many  more  in  the  Athar- 
vaveda,  belong  to  the  latest  products  of  the  Vedic  poe- 
try. They  concern  themselves  with  the  problem  of 
the  origin  of  the  world,  and  with  the  eternal  prin- 
ciple that  creates  and  maintains  the  world,  in  obscure 
phraseology,  and  in  unclear,  self- contradictory  trains 


2 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


of  thought,  as  might  be  expected  of  the  early  begin- 
nings of  speculation.  The  Yajurvedas,  also,  contain 
remarkable  and  highly  fantastic  cosmogonic  legends, 
in  which  the  world-creator  produces  things  by  the  all- 
powerful  sacrifice.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the 
ideas  of  the  portions  of  the  Veda  are  intimately  re- 
lated with  those  of  the  earlier  Upanishads,  in  fact  in 
many  respects  are  identical;^  their  connexion  is  also 
further  evinced  by  the  fact  that  both  in  these  Upa- 
nishads and  in  the  cosmogonic  hymns  and  legends  of 
the  Veda  the  subjects  discussed  make  their  appear- 
ance absolutely  without  order.  Still,  the  pre-Bud- 
dhistic  Upanishads,  and,  in  part,  also  their  precur- 
sors, the  Brahmanas,  which  deal  essentially  with  ritu- 
alistic questions,  and  the  more  speculative  Aranyakas, 
are  of  the  greatest  importance  for  our  studies ; for 
they  represent  a time  (beginning  we  know  not  when, 
and  ending  in  the  sixth  century  about)  in  which  the 
ideas  were  developed  that  became  determinative  of  the 
whole  subsequent  direction  of  Indian  thought  : ^ first 
and  above  all,  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of 
souls,  and  the  theory  intimately  connected  therewith 
of  the  subsequent  effects  of  actions  {Jiarmari).  The  be- 

1 Compare  on  this  point  Lucian  Scherman,  Pkilosophische  Hymnen  aus  der 
Rig-  und  Atkarva-Veda-Sanhitd  verglichen  init  den  Philosophemen  der  iilteren 
Upanishads^  Strassburg-London,  1887. 

2 Compare  A.  E.  Gough,  The  Philosophy  of  ihe  Upanishads  and  Ancient  In- 
dian London,  1882.  The  singular  unfavorable  judgment  of  the 

whole  philosophy  of  the  Upanishads  which  Gough  pronounces  in  the  open- 
ing of  his  otherwise  valuable  book,  may  perhaps  be  explained  by  the  morbid 
aversion  to  all  things  Indian,  which  absorbing  work  so  very  frequently  pro- 
duces in  Europeans  dwelling  any  length  of  time  in  India. 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  3 


lief  that  every  individual  unceasingly  moves  forward 
after  death  towards  new  existences  in  which  it  will 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  formerly  won  merits,  and  will  suf- 
fer the  consequences  of  formerly  committed  wrongs — 
whether  in  the  bodies  of  men,  animals,  or  plants,  or 
in  heavens  and  hells — has  dominated  the  Indian  peo- 
ple from  that  early  period  down  to  the  present  day. 
The  idea  was  never  made  the  subject  of  philosophical 
demonstration,  but  was  regarded  as  something  self- 
evident,  which,  with  the  exception  of  the  Charvakas, 
or  Materialists,  no  philosophical  school  or  religious 
sect  of  India  ever  doubted. 

The  origin  of  the  Indian  belief  in  metempsychosis 
is  unfortunately  still  shrouded  in  obscurity.  In  the 
old  Vedic  time  a joyful  view  of  life  prevailed  in  India 
in  which  we  discover  no  germs  whatever  of  the  con- 
ception which  subsequently  dominated  and  oppressed 
the  thought  of  the  whole  nation  ; as  yet  the  nation  did 
not  feel  life  as  a burden  but  as  the  supreme  good,  and 
its  eternal  continuance  after  death  was  longed  for  as 
the  reward  of  a pious  life.  In  the  place  of  this  inno- 
cent joy  of  life  suddenly  enters,  without  noticeable 
evidences  of  transition,  the  conviction  that  the  exist- 
ence of  the  individual  is  a journey  full  of  torments 
from  death  to  death.  It  is  natural  enough,  therefore, 
to  suspect  foreign  influence  in  this  sudden  revolution 
of  thought. 

I do  not  believe  that  Voltaire’s  rationalistic  explan- 
ation of  the  origin  of  the  Indian  doctrine  of  the  trans- 


4 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


migration  of  souls  now  counts  any  adherents  in  pro- 
fessional circles  ; but  it  is  remarkable  enough  to  merit 
a passing  notice.  According  to  the  theory  of  the  inge- 
nious Frenchman  the  knowledge  that  the  use  of  meat 
was  upon  the  whole  injurious  to  health  in  the  climate 
of  India  was  the  ground  of  the  prohibition  to  kill 
animals.  This  originally  purely  hygienic  precept  was 
clothed  in  religious  trappings,  and  the  people  thus 
gradually  grew  accustomed  to  reverence  and  to  wor- 
ship animals.  The  consequence  of  the  further  exten- 
sion of  this  animal  cult  then  was,  that  the  whole  ani- 
mal kingdom  was  felt  as  a sort  of  appurtenance  to  the 
human  species  and  was  gradually  assimilated  to  man 
in  the  imagination  of  the  people ; from  there  it  was 
simply  a step  to  accept  the  continuance  of  human  life 
in  the  bodies  of  animals.  This  whole  hypothesis  has 
long  since  been  rejected,  and  also  several  subsequent 
attempts  at  explanation  must  be  regarded  as  unsuc- 
cessful. 

A suggestion  of  Gough  (^The  Philosophy  of  the  Upa- 
nishads,  pp.  24-25)  alone  demands  more  serious  con- 
sideration. It  is  well  known  that  the  belief  that  the 
human  soul  passes  after  death  into  the  trunks  of  trees 
and  the  bodies  of  animals  is  extremely  widespread 
among  half-savage  tribes.^  On  the  basis  of  this  fact, 

l“The  Sonthals  are  said  to  believe  the  souls  of  the  f^ood  to  enter  into 
fruitbearing  trees.  The  Powhattans  believed  the  souls  of  their  chiefs  to  pass 
into  particular  wood-birds,  which  they  therefore  spared.  The  Tlascalans  of 
Mexico  thought  that  the  souls  of  their  nobles  migrated  after  death  into  beauti- 
ful singing-birds,  and  the  spirits  of  plebeians  into  beetles,  weasels,  and  other 
insignificant  creatures.  The  Zulus  of  South  Africa  are  said  to  believe  the 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  5 


Gough  assumes  that  the  Aryans,  on  their  amalgama- 
tion with  the  original  indigenous  inhabitants  of  India, 
received  from  these  the  idea  of  the  continuance  of  life 
in  animals  and  trees.  Although  this  assumption  can 
hardly  ever  be  made  the  subject  of  proof, ^ the  idea,  in 
my  opinion,  is  very  probable,  because  it  explains  what 
no  other  combinations  do  sufficiently  explain.  But  we 
must  be  on  our  guard  lest  we  overrate  the  influence  of 
the  crude  conceptions  of  the  aborigines.  With  all 
tribes  low  in  the  scale  of  civilisation  the  idea  implied 
in  such  beliefs  is  not  that  of  a transmigration  of  souls 
in  the  Indian  sense,  but  simply  the  notion  of  a contin- 
uance of  human  existence  in  animals  and  trees;  with 
this,  reflexion  on  the  subject  reaches  its  goal;  further 
consequences  are  not  drawn  from  the  idea.  Under  all 
circumstances,  therefore,  the  Ar}^an  Indians  can  have 
received  only  the  first  impetus  to  the  development  of 
the  theory  of  transmigration  from  the  aboriginal  inhab- 
itants ; the  elaboration  of  the  idea  they  borrowed — the 
assumption  of  a constant,  changing  continuance  of  life, 
and  its  connexion  with  the  doctrine  of  the  power  of 
deeds,  having  in  view  the  satisfaction  of  the  moral  con- 
sciousness— must  always  be  regarded  as  their  own  pe- 

passage  of  the  dead  into  snakes,  or  into  wasps  and  lizards.  The  Dayaks  of 
Borneo  imagine  themselves  to  find  the  souls  of  the  dead,  damp  and  bloodlike, 
in  the  trunks  of  trees.’’  Gough,  following  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  II., 
p.  6 et  seq. 

lOne  noteworthy  passage  bearing  on  this  point  may  be  found  in  Baudha- 
yana’s  Dharma^Astra,  II.,  8.  14.  9,  10,  where  it  is  prescribed  that  dumplings  of 
flour  should  be  thrown  to  the  birds,  just  as  they  are  offered  in  the  usual  an- 
cestral sacrifices;  **  for  it  is  said  that  our  ancestors  hoTer  about  in  the  shape 
of  birds.’  ’ 


6 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


culiar  achievement.  The  dominating  idea  of  this  doc- 
trine is  the  firm  conviction  that  unmerited  misfortune 
can  befall  no  one.  On  the  ground  of  this  conviction 
an  explanation  was  sought  for  the  fact  of  daily  obser- 
vation that  the  bad  fare  well,  and  the  good  fare  ill  1 
that  animals,  and  often  even  the  new-born  child,  who 
have  had  no  opportunity  to  incur  guilt,  must  suffer  the 
greatest  agonies  ; and  no  other  explanation  was  found 
than  the  assumption  that  in  this  life  are  expiated  the 
good  and  bad  deeds  of  a former  existence.  But  what 
held  true  of  that  existence  must  also  have  held  true  of 
the  one  which  preceded  it ; again  the  reason  of  for- 
merly experienced  happiness  and  misery  could  only  be 
found  in  a preceding  life.  And  thus  there  was  no  limit 
whatever  to  the  existence  of  the  individual  in  the  past. 
The  Samsara,  the  cycle  of  life,  has,  therefore,  no  be- 
ginning; for  “the  work  (that  is,  the  conduct  or  ac- 
tions) of  beings  is  beginningless.”  But  what  has  no 
beginning  has  by  a universally  admitted  law  also  no 
end.  The  Sanisara,  therefore,  never  ceases,  no  more 
than  it  never  began.  When  the  individual  receives 
the  rewards  for  his  good  and  his  bad  deeds,  a residuum 
of  merit  and  guilt  is  always  left  which  is  not  consumed 
and  which  demands  its  recompense  or  its  punishment, 
and,  therefore,  still  acts  as  the  germ  of  a new  exist- 
ence. Unexpiated  or  unrewarded  no  deed  remains; 
for  “as  among  a thousand  cows  a calf  finds  its  mother, 
so  the  previously  done  deed  follows  after  the  doer,” 
says  the  Mahabharata,  giving  in  words  the  view  which 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  7 


had  long  since  become  in  India  the  universal  belief. 
Now,  as  the  cause  of  all  action  is  desire,  desire  was 
declared  to  be  the  motive  power  of  the  eternal  contin- 
uance of  life.  Again,  as  desire  was  conceived  by  the 
Indian  mind  to  have  its  root  in  a sort  of  ignorance, 
in  a mistaking  of  the  true  nature  and  value  of  things, 
in  ignorance,  it  was  thought,  the  last  cause  of  Samsara 
was  hidden.  Equally  as  old  is  the  conviction  that  the 
law  which  fetters  living  beings  to  the  existence  of  the 
world  can  be  broken.  There  is  salvation  from  the 
Samsara;  and  the  means  thereto  is  the  saving  knowl- 
edge, which  is  found  by  every  philosophical  school  of 
India  in  some  special  form  of  cognition. 

The  dogmas  here  developed  are  summarised  by 
Deussen,  Syslan  des  Veddnta,  pp.  381-382,  in  the  fol- 
lowing appropriate  words  : ‘ ‘ The  idea  is  this,  that  life, 
in  quality  as  well  as  in  quantity,  is  the  precisely  meted, 
absolutely  appropriate  expiation  of  the  deeds  of  the 
previous  existence.  This  expiation  is  accomplished 
by  bhoktritvam  and  kartrilvam  (enjoying  and  acting), 
where  the  latter  again  is  converted  into  works  which 
must  be  expiated  afresh  in  a subsequent  existence,  so 
that  the  clock-work  of  atonement  in  running  down  al- 
ways winds  itself  up  again  ; and  this  unto  all  eternity 
■ — unless  the  universal  knowledge  appears  which  .... 
does  not  rest  on  merit  but  breaks  into  life  without 
connexion  with  it,  to  dissolve  it  in  its  innermost  ele- 
ments, to  burn  up  the  seeds  of  works,  and  thus  to 


8 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


make  impossible  for  all  future  time  a continuance  of 
the  transmigration.” 

What  Deussen  here  expounds  as  a doctrine  of  the 
Vedanta  system  is  a body  of  ideas  which  belongs  alike 
to  all  systems  of  Brahman  philosophy  and  to  Bud- 
dhism and  Jinism.  But  the  power  which  inheres  in 
the  actions  of  beings  extends,  according  to  the  Indian 
idea,  still  farther  than  was  stated  in  the  preceding 
exposition.  This  subsequent  effectiveness  of  guilt  and 
of  merit,  usually  called  adrishta,  “the  invisible,”  also 
often  simply  karman,  “deed,  work,”  not  only  deter- 
mines the  measure  of  happiness  and  suffering  which 
falls  to  the  lot  of  each  individual,  but  also  determines 
the  origin  and  evolution  of  all  things  in  the  universe. 
At  bottom  this  last  thought  is  only  a necessary  con- 
sequence of  the  theory  that  everj^  being  is  the  architect 
of  its  own  fate  and  fortunes  into  the  minutest  details ; 
for  whatever  comes  to  pass  in  the  world,  some  crea- 
ture is  inevitably  affected  by  it  and  must,  therefore, 
by  the  law  of  atonement  have  brought  about  the  event 
by  his  previous  acts.  The  operations  of  nature,  there- 
fore, are  the  effects  of  the  good  and  bad  actions  of 
living  beings.  When  trees  bear  fruits,  or  the  grain  of 
the  fields  ripens,  the  power  which  is  the  cause  of  this, 
according  to  the  Indian,  is  human  merit. 

Even  in  the  systems  which  accept  a God,  the  sole 
office  of  the  Deity  is  to  guide  the  world  and  the  fates 
of  creatures  in  strict  agreement  with  the  law  of  retri- 
bution, which  even  he  cannot  break.  For  the  many 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  Q 


powers  to  which  the  rest  of  the  world,  orthodox  and 
unorthodox,  ascribe  a determinative  influence  on  the 
lot  of  individuals  and  nations  as  also  on  the  control  of 
the  forces  of  nature, — divine  grace  and  punishment, 
the  order  of  the  world,  foresight,  fate,  accident — in 
India  there  is  no  place  by  the  side  of  the  power  of  the 
work  or  deed  which  rules  all  with  iron  necessity.  On 
these  assumptions  all  Indian  philosophy,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  materialism,  is  founded. 

The  most  important  theme  of  the  early  Upani- 
shads,  which  stand  at  the  head  of  the  real  philosophi- 
cal literature  of  India,  is  the  question  of  the  Eternal 
One.  It  is  true,  those  works  abound  in  reflexions 
on  theological,  ritualistic,  and  other  matters,  but  all 
these  reflexions  are  utterly  eclipsed  by  the  doctrine  of 
the  Eternal  One,  the  Atman  or  Brahtnan.  The  word 
Atman  originally  meant  “breathing,”  then  “the  vital 
principle,”  “the  Self”;  but  soon  it  was  used  to  signify 
the  Intransient  one  which  is  without  any  attribute  or 
quality, — the  All- Soul,  the  Soul  of  the  world,  the 
Thing-in-itself,  or  whatever  you  like  to  translate  it. 
Brahman,  on  the  other  hand,  originally  “the  prayer,” 
became  a term  for  the  power  which  is  inherent  in 
every  prayer  and  holy  action,  and  at  last  for  the  eter- 
nal, boundless  power  which  is  the  basis  of  everything 
existing.  Having  attained  this  stage  of  development, 
the  word  Brahman  became  completely  synonymous 
with  Atman.  The  objective  Brahman  and  the  subjec- 
tive Atman  amalgamated  into  one,  the  highest  meta- 


lO 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


physical  idea ; and  this  amalgamation  comprises  the 
doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  subject  and  the  object.  In 
numerous  parables  the  Upanishads  try  to  describe  the 
nature  of  Brahman,  but  all  their  reflexions  culminate 
in  one  point : the  inmost  Self  of  the  individual  being 
is  one  with  that  all-pervading  power  {tat  tvani  asi, 
“ thou  art  That”). 

This  spiritual  monism  challenged  the  contradiction 
of  Kapila,  the  founder  of  the  Samkhya  philosophy,^ 
who,  in  a rationalistic  way,  saw'  only  the  diversity, 
but  not  the  unity  of  the  universe.  The  Samkhya  doc- 
trine— the  oldest  real  system  of  Indian  philosophy — 
is  entirely  dualistic.  Two  things  are  admitted,  both 
eternal  and  everlasting,  but  in  their  innermost  charac- 
ter totally  different ; namely,  matter  and  soul,  or  bet- 
ter a boundless  plurality  of  individual  souls.  The  ex- 
istence of  the  creator  and  ruler  of  the  universe  is 
denied.  The  world  develops  according  to  certain  laws 
out  of  primitive  matter,  which  first  produces  those 
subtile  substances  of  which  the  internal  organs  of  all 
creatures  are  formed,  and  after  that  brings  forth  the 
gross  matter.  At  the  end  of  a period  of  the  universe 
the  products  dissolve  by  retrogradation  into  primitive 
matter;  and  this  continual  cycle  of  evolution,  exist- 
ence, and  dissolution  has  neither  beginning  nor  end. 
The  psychology  of  this  interesting  system  is  of  special 
importance.  All  the  functions  which  ordinarily  we  de- 

lAn  exhaustive  exposition  of  ihe  doctrines  of  this  system  has  been  given 
by  the  author  in  his  work  on  the  Saipkhya  Philosophy,  Leipsic,  1894,  H. 
Haessel. 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 


II 


note  as  psychic,  i.  e.,  perception,  sensation,  thinking, 
willing,  etc.,  according  to  the  Sarnkhya  doctrine,  are 
merely  mechanical  processes  of  the  internal  organs, 
that  is,  of  matter.  These  would  remain  unconscious, 
if  it  were  not  for  the  soul  which  “illuminates”  them, 
i.  e.,  makes  them  conscious.  No  other  object  is  ac- 
complished by  soul.  Soul  is  perfectly  indifferent  and, 
therefore,  also  not  the  vehicle  of  moral  responsibility. 
This  office  is  assumed  by  the  subtile  or  internal  body, 
which  is  chiefly  formed  of  the  inner  organs  and  the 
senses,  and  which  surrounds  the  soul.  This  internal 
body  accompanies  soul  from  one  existence  into  an- 
other, and  is,  therefore,  the  real  principle  of  metem- 
psychosis. It  is  the  object  of  the  Samkhya  philosophy 
to  teach  people  to  know  the  absolute  distinction  be- 
tween soul  and  matter  in  its  most  subtile  modifications, 
as  it  appears  in  the  inner  organs.  A man  has  attained 
the  highest  aim  of  human  exertion  if  this  distinction 
is  perfectly  clear  to  him  : discriminative  knowledge 
delivers  soul  from  the  misery  of  the  endless  flow  of 
existence  and  abolishes  the  necessity  of  being  born 
again.  The  Samkhya  philosophy  is  already  saturated 
with  that  pessimism  which  has  put  its  stamp  on  the 
outcomes  of  this  system. 

The  Sarnkhya  system  supplied,  in  all  main  out- 
lines, the  foundations  of  Jinism  and  Buddhism,  two 
philosophically  embellished  religions,  which  start  from 
the  idea  that  this  life  is  nothing  but  suffering,  and  al- 
ways revert  to  that  thought.  According  to  them  the 


12 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


cause  of  suffering  is  the  desire  to  live  and  to  enjoy  the 
delights  of  the  world,  and  in  the  last  instance  the 
“ignorance”  from  which  this  desire  proceeds;  the 
means  of  the  abolition  of  this  ignorance,  and  there- 
with of  suffering,  is  the  annihilation  of  that  desire,  re- 
nunciation of  the  world,  and  a most  boundless  exercise 
of  practical  love  towards  all  creatures.  In  the  sub- 
sequent time,  it  is  true.  Buddhism  and  Jinism  so 
developed  that  some  of  their  teachings  were  stoutly 
contested  in  the  Samkhya  writings.^  These  two  pes- 
simistic religions  are  so  extraordinarily  alike  that  the 
Jains,  that  is,  the  adherents  of  Jina,  were  for  a long 
time  regarded  as  a Buddhistic  sect,  until  it  was  dis- 
covered that  the  founders  of  the  two  religions  were 
contemporaries,  who  in  turn  are  simply  to  be  regarded 
as  the  most  eminent  of  the  numerous  teachers  who  in 
the  sixth  century  before  Christ  in  North  Central  India 
opposed  the  ceremonial  doctrines  and  the  caste-sys- 
tem of  the  Brahmans.  The  true  significance  of  these 
religions  lies  in  their  high  development  of  ethics, 
which  in  the  scholastic  Indian  philosophy  is  almost 


lOne  question  here  was  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Jains  that  the  soul  has  the 
same  extension  as  the  body— a thought  which  is  refuted  by  the  argument  that 
everything  bounded  is  perishable,  and  that  this  would  hold  good  with  all  the 
more  force  of  the  soul,  as  this  in  its  transmigration  through  different  bodies 
must  be  assimilated  to  the  bodies  that  receive  it,  that  is,  must  expand  and 
contract,  a feat  achievable  only  by  a thing  made  up  of  parts.  But  the  main 
points  attacked  are  the  following  views  of  Buddhism.  The  Samkhyas  prin- 
cipally impugn  the  Buddhistic  denial  of  the  soul  as  a compact,  persistent 
principle,  further  the  doctrine  that  all  things  possess  only  a momentary  ex- 
istence, and  that  salvation  is  the  annihilation  of  self.  From  this  it  is  plain 
that  the  Samkhyas  of  the  later  epoch  saw  in  Buddhism,  which  nevertheless 
was  essentially  an  outgrowth  of  its  system,  one  of  its  principal  opponents. 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  1 3 


wholly  neglected.  Buddhism  and  Jinism  agree,  how- 
ever, with  the  latter,  in  the  promise,  made  by  all  real 
systems  of  India,  to  redeem  man  from  the  torments  of 
continued  mundane  life,  and  in  their  perception  of  a 
definite  ignorance  as  the  root  of  all  mundane  evil ; 
but  in  the  philosophical  establishment  of  their  princi- 
ples, both  method  and  clearness  of  thought  are  want- 
ing.^ 

It  must  also  be  mentioned  in  this  connexion  that 
the  religions  of  Buddha  and  Jina  have  as  little  broken 
with  the  mythological  views  of  the  people  as  the 
Brahmanic  philosophical  systems.  The  existence  of 
gods,  demigods,  and  demons  is  not  doubted,  but  is 
of  little  importance.  It  is  true  the  gods  are  more 
highly  organised  and  more  fortunate  beings  than  men, 
but  like  these  they  also  stand  within  the  Samsara,  and 
if  they  do  not  acquire  the  saving  knowledge  and  thus 
withdraw  from  mundane  existence,  must  also  change 
their  bodies  as  soon  as  the  power  of  their  formerly 
won  merit  is  exhausted.  They,  too,  have  not  escaped 
the  power  of  death,  and  they  therefore  stand  lower 
than  the  man  who  has  attained  the  highest  goal.^ 
Much  easier  than  the  attainment  of  this  goal  is  it  to 
lift  oneself  by  virtue  and  good  works  to  the  divine 

^Compare  especially  the  Buddhistic  formula  of  the  causal  nexus  in 
Oldenberg’s  Buddha,  Part  II.,  Chapter 

2 This  belief  in  developed,  ephemeral  gods  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
question  of  the  eternal  God  accepted  in  some  systems.  The  use  of  a special 
word  {t^ara,  “ the  powerful  ” ) in  the  Indian  philosophy  plainly  grew  out  of 
(he  endeavor  to  distinguish  verbally  between  this  god  and  the  popular  gods 
deva  . 


14  the  philosophy  of  ancient  INDIA. 

plane,  and  to  be  born  again  after  death  on  the  moon 
or  in  the  world  of  Indra  or  of  Brahman,  etc.,  even  in 
the  person  of  one  of  these  gods  ; but  only  foolish  men 
yearn  after  such  transitory  happiness. 

In  the  second  century  before  Christ  the  Yoga 
philosophy  was  founded  by  Patahjali.  In  part,  this 
event  is  simply  the  literary  fixation  of  the  views  which 
were  held  on  asceticism  and  on  the  mysterious  powers 
which  it  was  assumed  could  be  acquired  by  asceti- 
cism. The  Yoga,  that  is,  the  turning  away  of  the 
senses  from  the  external  world,  and  the  concentration 
of  the  mind  within,  was  known  and  practised  many 
centuries  previously  in  India.  In  the  Buddhistic  com- 
munion, for  example,  the  state  of  ecstatic  abstraction 
was  always  a highly  esteemed  condition.  Patanjali, 
now,  elaborated  the  doctrine  of  concentration  into  a 
system  and  described  at  length  the  means  of  attaining 
that  condition,  and  of  carrying  it  to  its  highest  pitch. 
The  methodical  performance  of  the  Yoga  practice,  ac- 
cording to  Patanjali,  leads  not  only  to  the  possession 
of  the  supernatural  powers,  but  is  also  the  most  ef- 
fective means  of  attaining  the  saving  knowledge. 

The  metaphysical  basis  of  the  Yoga  system  is  the 
Sarnkhya  philosophy,  whose  doctrines  Patanjali  so 
completely  incorporated  into  his  system  that  that  phi- 
losophy is  with  justice  uniformly  regarded  in  Indian 
literature  as  a branch  of  the  Sarnkhya.  At  bottom,  all 
that  Patanjali  did  was  to  embellish  the  Sarnkhya  sys- 
tem with  the  Yoga  practice,  the  mysterious  powers. 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  1 5 


and  the  personal  god  ; his  chiei  aim  had,  no  doubt, 
been  to  render  this  system  acceptable  to  his  fellow- 
countrymen  by  the  eradication  of  its  atheism.  But  the 
insertion  of  the  personal  god,  which  subsequently  de- 
cisively determined  the  character  of  the  Yoga  system, 
was,  to  judge  from  the  Yogasutras,  the  text-book  of 
Patanjali,  at  first  accomplished  in  a very  loose  and  su- 
perficial manner,  so  that  the  contents  and  purpose  of 
the  system  were  not  at  all  affected  by  it.  We  can  even 
say  that  the  Yogasutras  I.  23-27,  II.  i,  45,  which 
treat  of  the  person  of  God,  are  unconnected  with  the 
other  parts  of  the  text-book,  nay,  even  contradict  the 
foundations  of  the  system.  The  ultimate  goal  of  hu- 
man aspiration  according  to  that  text-book  is  not 
union  with  or  absorption  in  God,  but  exactly  what  it 
is  in  the  Samkhya  philosophy,  the  absolute  isolation 
(Jzaivalya)  of  the  soul  from  matter.  When  L.  von 
Schroeder  (^Indiens  Literatur  und  Cultur,  p.  687)  says  : 
“The  Yoga  bears  throughout  a theistic  character;  it 
assumes  a primitive  soul  from  which  the  individual 
souls  proceed,”  his  statement  is  incorrect,  for  the  in- 
dividual souls  are  just  as  much  beginningless  as  the 
“special  soul”  (^purusha-vifesha,  Yogasutra,  I.  24) 
that  is  called  God. 

In  contrast  to  these  two  closely  related  systems, 
Samkhya  and  Yoga,  the  ancient,  genuine  Brahmanic 
elements,  the  ritual  and  the  idealistic  speculation  of 
the  Upanishads,  are  developed  in  a methodical  man- 
ner in  the  two  following  intimately  connected  systems 


i6 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


whose  origin  we  can  place  approximately  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Christian  era. 

The  Purva-(or  Karma)mimamsa,  “the  first  in- 
quiry,” or  “the  -inquiry  concerning  works,”  usually 
briefly  called  Mimamsa,  founded  by  Jaimini,  is  proba- 
bly counted  among  the  philosophical  systems  only  be- 
cause of  its  form  and  its  connexion  with  the  Vedanta 
doctrine ; for  it  is  concerned  with  the  interpretation 
of  the  Veda,  which  it  holds  to  be  uncreated  and  exist- 
ent from  all  eternity : classifying  its  component  parts 
and  treating  of  the  rules  for  the  performance  of  the 
ceremonies,  as  of  the  rewards  which  singly  follow 
upon  the  latter.  This  last  is  the  main  theme  of  this 
system,  in  which  the  true  scriptural  scholarship  of  the 
Brahmans  is  condensed.  Questions  of  general  signifi- 
cance are  only  incidentally  discussed  in  the  Mimamsa. 
Especial  prominence  belongs  here  to  the  proposition 
that  the  articulate  sounds  are  eternal,  and  to  the  the- 
ory based  upon  it,  that  the  connexion  of  a word  with 
its  significance  is  independent  of  human  agreement, 
and,  consequently,  that  the  significance  of  a word  is 
inherent  in  the  word  itself,  by  nature.  Hitherto,  the 
Mimarnsa  has  little  occupied  the  attention  of  Eu 
ropean  indologists ; the  best  description  of  its  princi- 
pal contents  will  be  found  in  the  “Introductory  Re- 
marks” of  G.  Thibaut’s  edition  of  the  Arthasamgraha 
{^Benares  Sanskrit  Series,  1882). 

The  Uttara-(or  Brahma-)mimarnsa,  '♦the  second 
inquiry,”  or  “the  inquiry  into  the  Brahman,”  most 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  1 7 


commonly  called  Vedanta,  bears  some  such  relation 
to  the  earlier  Upanishads  as,  to  use  an  expression  of 
Deussen’s,  Christian  dogmatics  bear  to  the  New  Tes- 
tament. Its  founder,  Badarayana,  accepted  and  fur- 
ther developed  the  above-discussed  doctrines  of  the 
Brahman-Atman,  into  the  system  which  to  the  pres- 
ent day  determines  the  world-view  of  the  Indian  think- 
ers. This  system  has  received  excellent  and  exhaust- 
ive treatment  in  the  above-cited  work  of  Deussen, 
which  is  to  be  emphatically  recommended  to  all  inter- 
ested in  Indian  philosophy.  The  basis  of  the  Vedanta 
is  the  principle  of  the  identity  of  our  Self  with  the 
Brahman.  Since,  now,  the  eternal,  infinite  Brahman 
is  not  made  up  of  parts,  and  cannot  be  subject  to 
change,  consequently  our  self  is  not  a part  or  ema- 
nation of  it,  but  is  the  whole,  indivisible  Brahman. 
Other  being  besides  this  there  is  not,  and,  accord- 
ingly, the  contents  of  the  Vedanta  system  are  compre- 
hended in  the  expression  advaita-vdda,  “the  doctrine 
of  non-duality.”  The  objection  which  experience  and 
the  traditional  belief  in  the  transmigration  of  souls 
and  in  retribution  raise  against  this  principle,  has  no 
weight  with  Badarayana  ; experience  and  the  doctrine 
of  retribution  are  explained  by  the  ignorance  {avidyd), 
inborn  in  man,  which  prevents  the  soul  from  discrim- 
inating between  itself,  its  body  and  organs,  and  from 
recognising  the  empirical  world  as  an  illusion  (yndyd). 
The  Vedanta  philosophy  does  not  inquire  into  the  rea- 
son and  origin  of  this  ignorance  ; it  simply  teaches  us 


i8 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


that  it  exists  and  that  it  is  annihilated  by  knowledge 
{vidyd'),  that  is,  by  the  universal  knowledge  which 
grasps  the  illusory  nature  of  all  that  is  not  soul,  and 
the  absolute  identity  of  the  soul  with  the  Brahman. 
With  this  knowledge,  the  conditions  of  the  continu- 
ance of  the  mundane  existence  of  the  soul  are  re- 
moved— for  this  in  truth  is  only  semblance  and  illu- 
sion— and  salvation  is  attained. 

In  this  way  are  the  Brahmasutras,  the  text-book  of 
Badarayana,  expounded  by  the  famous  exegetist  ^arn- 
kara  (towards  800  after  Christ),  upon  whose  commen- 
tary Deussen’s  exposition  is  based.  Now,  as  this 
text-book,  like  the  chief  works  of  the  other  schools,  is 
clothed  in  the  form  of  aphorisms  not  intelligible  per 
se,  we  are  unable  to  prove  from  its  simple  verbal  tenor 
that  ^arnkara  was  always  right  in  his  exegesis;  but 
intrinsic  reasons  render  it  in  the  highest  degree  prob- 
able that  the  expositions  of  ^arnkara  agree  in  all  es- 
sential points  with  the  system  which  was  laid  down  in 
the  Brahmasutras.  The  subsequent  periods  produced 
a long  succession  of  other  commentaries  on  the  Brah- 
masutras, which  in  part  give  expression  to  the  religio- 
philosophical  point  of  view  of  special  sects.  The  most 
important  of  these  commentaries  is  that  of  Ramanuja, 
which  dates  from  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century. 
Ramanuja  belonged  to  one  of  the  oldest  sects  of  In- 
dia, the  Bhagavatas  or  Pancharatras,  who  professed 
an  originally  un-Brahmanic,  popular  monotheism,  and 
saw  salvation  solely  in  the  love  of  God  {bhakti').  Upon 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  I9 


the  Brahmanisation  of  this  sect,  their  God  (usually 
called  Bhagavant  or  Vasudeva)  was  identified  with 
Vishnu,  and  from  that  time  on  the  Bhagavatas  are 
considered  as  a Vishnuitic  sect.  Its  doctrine,  which 
is  closely  related  to  Christian  ideas,  but,  in  my  opin- 
ion, was  not  constructed  under  Christian  influences,  is 
chiefly  expounded  in  the  Bhagavadgita,  in  the  (^andi- 
lyasutras,  in  the  Bhagavata  Purana,  and  in  the  text- 
books proper  of  the  sect,  among  which  we  may  also 
reckon  Ramanuja’s  commentary  on  the  Brahmasutras. 
According  to  the  tenet  of  the  Bhagavatas,  the  individ- 
ual souls  are  not  identical  with  the  highest  soul  or 
God,  and  are  also  not  implicated  by  a kind  of  “ignor- 
ance ” in  mundane  existence,  but  by  unbelief.  Devout 
love  of  God  is  the  means  of  salvation,  that  is,  of  union 
with  the  Highest.  The  best  exposition  of  the  system 
which  Ramanuja  imported  into  the  Brahmasutras  will 
be  found  in  R.  G.  Bhandarkar’s  Report  on  the  Search 
for  Sanskrit  Manuscripts  During  the  Year  1883-1884, 
Bombay,  1887,  p.  68  et  seq. 

As  of  the  systems  thus  far  considered  always  two 
are  found  intimately  connected,  the  Sarnkhya-Yoga 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  Mimamsa-Vedanta  on  the 
other,  so  also  in  a subsequent  period  the  two  remain- 
ing systems  which  passed  as  orthodox,  the  Vai5eshika 
and  the  Nyaya,  were  amalgamated.  The  reason  of 
this  was  manifestly  the  circumstance  that  both  incul- 
cated the  origin  of  the  world  from  atoms  and  were 
signalised  by  a sharp  classification  of  ideas ; yet  the 


20 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Vai9eshika  system  is  certainly  of  much  greater  antiq- 
uity than  the  Nyaya.  The  former  is  already  attacked 
in  the  Brahmasutras,  II.,  2,  12-17,  where  at  the  con- 
clusion the  interesting  remark  is  found  that  it  is  un- 
worthy of  consideration  because  no  one  embraced  it. 
But  in  a subsequent  period  the  system,  far  from  being 
despised,  became  very  popular. 

Kanada  (Kanabhuj  or  Kanabhaksha)  is  considered 
the  founder  of  the  Vai9eshika  system  ; but  this  name, 
which  signifies  etymologically  “atom-eater,”  appears 
to  have  been  originally  a nickname  suggested  by  the 
character  of  the  system ; but  which  ultimately  sup- 
planted the  true  name  of  the  founder. 

The  strength  of  the  system  is  contained  in'its  enun- 
ciation of  the  categories,  under  which,  as  Kanada 
thought,  everything  that  existed  might  be  subsumed : 
substance,  quality,  motion  (or  action),  generality, 
particularity,  and  inherence.  These  notions  are  very 
sharply  defined  and  broken  up  into  subdivisions.  Of 
especial  interest  to  us  is  the  category  of  inherence  or  in- 
separability {samavdya).  This  relation,  which  is  rigor- 
ously distinguished  from  accidental,  soluble  connexion 
(samyoga),  exists  between  the  thing  and  its  properties, 
between  the  whole  and  its  parts,  between  motion  and 
the  object  in  motion,  between  species  and  genus. 

Later  adherents  of  the  Vai9eshika  system  added 
to  the  six  categories  a seventh,  which  has  exercised  a 
momentous  influence  on  the  development  of  logical 
inquiries  : non-existence  {abhdva).  With  Indian  sub- 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  21 


tlety  this  category  also  is  divided  into  subspecies, 
namely  into  prior  and  posterior,  mutual  and  absolute 
non-existence.  Putting  it  positively,  we  should  say,  in- 
stead of  “prior  non-existence,”  “future  existence,”  in- 
stead of  “posterior  non-existence,”  “past  existence.” 
“Mutual”  or  “reciprocal  non  existence”  is  that  rela- 
tion which  obtains  between  two  non-identical  things 
(for  example,  the  fact  that  a jug  is  not  a cloth,  and 
vice  versa)-,  “absolute  non-existence”  is  illustrated  by 
the  example  of  the  impossibility  of  fire  in  water. 

Now,  Kanada  by  no  means  limited  himself  to  the 
enunciation  and  specialisation  of  the  categories.  He 
takes  pains,  in  his  discussion  of  them,  to  solve  the 
most  various  problems  of  existence  and  of  thought, 
and  thus  to  reach  a comprehensive  philosophical  view 
of  the  world.  The  category  substance,  under  which 
notion,  according  to  him,  earth,  water,  light,  air, 
ether,  time,  space,  soul,  and  the  organ  of  thought  fall, 
affords  him  the  occasion  of  developing  his  theory  of 
the  origin  of  the  world  from  atoms ; the  category  qual- 
ity, in  which  are  embraced  besides  the  properties  of 
matter  also  the  mental  properties : cognition,  joy, 
pain,  desire,  aversion,  energy,  merit,  guilt,  and  dis- 
position, leads  him  to  the  development  of  his  psychol- 
ogy and  to  the  exposition  of  his  theory  of  the  sources 
of  knowledge. 

The  psychological  side  of  this  system  is  very  re- 
markable and  exhibits  some  analogies  with  the  cor- 
responding views  of  the  Sarnkh3’a  philosophy'.  The 


22 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


soul,  according  to  Kanada,  is  beginningless,  eternal, 
and  all-pervading,  that  is,  limited  neither  by  time  nor 
space.  If,  now,  the  soul  could  come  into  immediate 
connexion  with  the  objects  of  knowledge,  all  objects 
would  reach  consciousness  simultaneously.  That  this 
is  not  the  case,  Kanada  explains  by  the  assumption 
of  the  organ  of  thought  or  inner  sense  (manas),  with 
which  the  soul  stands  in  the  most  intimate  connexion. 
The  soul  knows  by  means  of  this  manas  alone,  and  it 
perceives  through  it  not  only  the  external  things,  but 
also  its  own  qualities.  The  manas,  as  contradistin- 
guished from  the  soul,  is  an  atom,  and  as  such  only 
competent  to  comprehend  one  object  in  each  given 
instant. 

The  last  of  the  six  Brahmanic  systems,  the  Nyaya 
philosophy  of  Gotama,  is  a development  and  comple- 
ment of  the  doctrines  of  Kanada.  Its  special  signifi- 
cance rests  in  its  extraordinarily  exhaustive  and  acute 
exposition  of  formal  logic,  which  has  remained  un- 
touched in  India  down  to  the  present  day,  and  serves 
as  the  basis  of  all  philosophical  studies.  The  doctrine 
of  the  means  of  knowledge  (perception,  inference,  anal- 
ogy, and  trustworthy  evidence),  of  syllogisms,  falla- 
cies, and  the  like,  is  treated  with  the  greatest  fulness. 
The  importance  which  is  attributed  to  logic  in  the 
Nyaya  system  appears  from  the  very  first  Sutra  of 
Gotama’s  text-book  in  which  sixteen  logical  notions 
are  enumerated  with  the  remark  that  the  attainment 
of  the  highest  salvation  depends  upon  a correct  knowl- 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  23 


edge  of  their  nature.  The  psychology  of  the  Nyaya 
agrees  fully  with  that  of  the  Vaifeshika  system.  The 
metaphysical  foundations,  too,  are  the  same  here  as 
in  that  system ; in  both,  the  world  is  conceived  as  an 
agglomeration  of  eternal,  unalterable,  and  causeless 
atoms.  The  fundamental  text- books  of  the  two  schools, 
the  Vai9eshika  and  Nyaya  Sutras,  originally  did  not 
accept  the  existence  of  God  ; it  was  not  till  a subse- 
quent period  that  the  two  systems  changed  to  theism, 
although  neither  ever  went  so  far  as  to  assume  a cre- 
ator of  matter.  Their  theology  is  first  developed  in 
Udayanacharya’s  Kusumanjali  (towards  1300  after 
Christ),  as  also  in  the  works  which  treat  jointly  of  the 
Nyaya  and  Vai9eshika  doctrines.  According  to  them, 
God  is  a special  soul,  like  all  other  individual  and  sim- 
ilarly eternal  souls,  only  with  the  difference  that  to 
him  those  qualities  are  wanting  that  condition  the 
transmigration  of  the  other  souls,  or  that  are  condi- 
tioned by  that  transmigration  (merit,  guilt,  aversion, 
joy,  pain),  and  that  he  alone  possesses  the  special  at- 
tributes of  omnipotence  and  omniscience,  by  which 
he  is  made  competent  to  be  the  guide  and  regulator 
of  the  universe. 

In  the  first  centuries  after  Christ  an  eclectic  move- 
ment, which  was  chiefly  occupied  with  the  combina- 
tion of  the  Samkhya,  Yoga,  and  Vedanta  theories,  was 
started  in  India.  The  oldest  literary  production  of 
this  movement  is  the  (^veta,9vatara  Upanishad,  com- 
posed by  a ^ivite,  the  supreme  being  in  this  Upani- 


24 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


shad  being  invested  with  the  name  of  Qiva.  More  cel- 
ebrated than  this  Upanishad  is  the  Bhagavadgita, 
admired  equally  in  India  and  in  the  Occident  for  its 
loftiness  of  thought  and  expression — an  episode  of  the 
Mahabharata.  In  the  Bhagavadgita,  the  supreme  be- 
ing appears  incarnated  in  the  person  of  Krishna,  who 
stands  at  the  side  of  the  famous  bowman,  Arjuna,  as 
his  charioteer,  expounding  to  this  personage  shortly 
before  the  beginning  of  a battle  his  doctrines.  No- 
where in  the  philosophical  and  religious  literature  of 
India  are  the  behests  of  duty  so  beautifully  and  strongly 
emphasised  as  here.  Ever  and  anon  does  Krishna 
revert  to  the  doctrine,  that  for  every  man,  no  matter 
to  what  caste  he  may  belong,  the  zealous  performance 
of  his  duty  and  the  discharge  of  his  obligations  is  his 
most  important  work. 

The  six  systems  Mimarnsa,  Vedanta,  Samkhya, 
Yoga,  Vai9eshika,  and  Nyaya,  are  accepted  as  ortho- 
dox {dstika)  by  the  Brahmans  ; but  the  reader  will  no- 
tice, that  in  India  this  term  has  a different  signifi- 
cance from  what  it  has  with  us.  In  that  country,  not 
only  has  the  most  absolute  freedom  of  thought  always  pre- 
vailed, but  also  philosophical  speculation,  even  in  its 
boldest  forms,  has  placed  itself  in  accord  with  the 
popular  religion  to  an  extent  never  again  realised  on 
earth  between  these  two  hostile  powers.  One  conces- 
sion only  the  Brahman  caste  demanded ; the  recog 
nition  of  its  class-prerogatives  and  of  the  infallibility 
of  the  Veda.  Whoever  agreed  to  this  passed  as  or- 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  25 


thodox,  and  by  having  done  so  assured  for  his  teach- 
ings much  greater  success  than  if  he  had  openly  pro- 
claimed himself  a heretic  {ndstikd)  by  a refusal  of 
such  recognition.  The  concession  demanded  by  the 
Brahmans,  so  far  as  it  referred  to  Scripture,  needed 
only  to  be  a nominal  one;  it  compelled  neither  full 
agreement  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Veda,  nor  the 
confession  of  any  belief  in  the  existence  of  God. 

By  the  side  of  the  Brahmanic  and  non-Brahmanic 
systems  mentioned  in  this  survey,  we  find  also  in  In- 
dia that  view  of  the  world  which  is  “as  old  as  philos- 
ophy itself,  but  not  older”  materialism.  The  San- 
skrit word  for  “materialism”  is  lokdyaia  (“directed 
to  the  world  of  sense”),  and  the  materialists  are  called 
lok&yatika  or  laukdyatika,  but  are  usually  named,  after 
the  founder  of  their  theory,  Charvakas.  Several  ves- 
tiges show  that  even  in  pre-Buddhistic  India  proclaim- 
ers  of  purely  materialistic  doctrines  appeared;  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  those  doctrines  had  ever  after- 
wards, as  they  have  to-day,  numerous  secret  follow- 
ers. Although  one  source  (Bhaskaracharya  on  the 
Brahmasutra  III.  3.  53)  attests  the  quondam  existence 
of  a text-book  of  materialism,  the  Sutras  of  Brihas- 
pati  (the  mythical  founder),  yet  in  all  India  mate- 
rialism found  no  other  literary  expression.  We  are  re- 
ferred, therefore,  for  an  understanding  of  that  philos- 
ophy, principally  to  the  polemics  which  were  directed 
against  it  in  the  text-books  of  the  other  philosophical 


IThe  first  words  of  Lange's  History  of  Materialism. 


26 


THE  rUlLOSOPHY  OF  A^'CIENT  INDIA. 


schools,  and  to  the  first  chapter  of  the  Sarva-dar- 
9ana-sarngraha,  a compendium  of  all  philosophical 
systems,  compiled  in  the  fourteenth  century  by  the 
well-known  Vedantic  teacher  Madhavacharya  (trans- 
lated into  English  by  Cowell  and  Gough,  London, 
1882,)  in  which  the  system  is  expounded.  Madhava- 
charya begins  his  exposition  with  an  expression  of  re- 
gret that  the  majority  of  mankind  espouse  the  mate- 
rialism represented  by  Charvaka. 

Another  Vedantic  teacher,  Sadananda,  speaks  in 
his  Vedantasara,  §§  148-151,  of  four  materialistic 
schools,  which  are  distinguished  from  one  another  by 
their  conception  of  the  soul ; according  to  the  first, 
the  soul  is  identical  with  the  gross  body,  according  to 
the  second,  with  the  senses,  according  to  the  third, 
with  the  breath,  and  according  to  the  fourth,  with  the 
organ  of  thought  or  the  internal  sense  {juanas).  No 
difference  in  point  of  principle  exists  between  these 
four  views ; for  the  senses,  the  breath,  and  the  inter- 
nal organ  are  really  only  attributes  or  parts  of  the 
body.  Different  phases  of  Indian  materialism  are, 
accordingly,  not  to  be  thought  of. 

The  Charvakas  admit  perception  only  as  a means 
of  knowledge,  and  reject  inference.  As  the  sole  real- 
ity they  consider  the  four  elements ; that  is,  matter. 
When  through  the  combination  of  the  elements,  the 
body  is  formed,  then  by  their  doctrine  the  soul  also  is 
created  exactly  as  is  the  power  of  intoxication  from 
the  mixture  of  certain  ingredients.  With  the  annihi- 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  27 


lation  of  the  body,  the  soul  also  is  annihilated.  The 
soul,  accordingly,  is  nothing  but  the  body  with  the 
attribute  of  intelligence,  since  soul  different  from  the 
body  cannot  be  established  by  sense-perception.  Nat- 
urally, all  other  supra- sensual  things  also  are  denied, 
and  in  part  treated  with  irony.  Hell  is  earthly  pain 
produced  by  earthly  causes.  The  highest  being  is  the 
king  of  the  land,  whose  existence  is  proved  by  the 
perception  of  the  whole  world ; salvation  is  the  disso- 
lution of  the  body.  The  after  effects  of  merit  and  of 
guilt,  which  by  the  belief  of  all  other  schools  deter- 
mine the  fate  of  every  individual  in  its  minutest  de- 
tails, do  not  exist  for  the  Charvaka,  because  this  idea 
is  reached  only  by  inference.  To  the  animadversion 
of  an  orthodox  philosopher  that  the  varied  phenomena 
of  this  world  have  no  cause  for  him  who  denies  this 
all-powerful  factor,  the  Charvaka  retorts,  that  the  true 
nature  of  things  is  the  cause  from  which  the  phenom- 
ena proceed. 

The  practical  side  of  this  system  is  eudaemonism 
of  the  crudest  sort ; for  sensuous  delight  is  set  up  as 
the  only  good  worth  striving  for.  The  objection  that 
sensuous  pleasures  cannot  be  the  highest  goal  of  man 
because  a certain  measure  of  pain  is  always  mingled 
with  them,  is  repudiated  with  the  remark  that  it  is  the 
business  of  our  intelligence  to  enjoy  pleasures  in  the 
purest  form  possible,  and  to  withdraw  ourselves  as 
much  as  possible  from  the  pain  inseparably  connected 
with  them.  The  man  who  wishes  fish  takes  their 


28 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


scales  and  bones  into  the  bargain,  and  he  who  wishes 
rice  takes  its  stalks.  It  is  absurd,  therefore,  for  fear 
of  pain,  to  give  up  pleasure,  which  we  instinctively 
feel  appeals  to  our  nature. 

The  Vedas  are  stigmatised  as  the  gossip  of  knaves, 
infected  with  the  three  faults  of  falsehood,  self-con- 
tradiction, and  useless  tautology,  and  the  advocates 
of  Vedic  science  are  denounced  as  cheats  whose  doc- 
trines annul  one  another.  For  the  Charvakas,  the 
Brahmanic  ritual  is  a swindle,  and  the  costly  and  la- 
borious sacrifices  serve  only  the  purpose  of  procuring 
for  the  rogues  who  perform  them  a subsistence.  “If 
an  animal  sacrificed  gets  into  heaven,  why  does  not 
the  sacrificer  rather  slay  his  own  father  ? ” No  wonder 
that  for  the  orthodox  1 ndian  the  doctrine  of  the  Char- 
vakas is  the  worst  of  all  heresies.  The  text-books  of 
the  orthodox  schools  seek,  as  was  said  above,  to  refute 
this  dangerous  materialism.  As  an  example,  we  may 
cite  the  refutation  of  the  doctrine  that  there  is  no 
means  of  knowledge  except  perception,  given  in  the 
Samkhya-tattva-kaumudi,  § 5,  where  we  read  : “When 
“the  materialist  affirms  that  ‘ inference  is  not  a means 
“of  knowledge,’  how  is  it  that  he  can  know  that  a 
“man  is  ignorant,  or  in  doubt,  or  in  error?  For  truly 
“ignorance,  doubt,  and  error  cannot  possibly  be  dis- 
“ covered  in  other  men  by  sense-perception.  Accord- 
“ingly,  even  by  the  materialist,  ignorance,  etc.,  in 
“ other  men  must  be  inferred  from  conduct  and  from 
“speech,  and,  therefore,  inference  is  recognised  as  a 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  2Q 


“means  of  knowledge  even  against  the  materialist’s 
“will.” 

Besides  the  systems  here  briefly  reviewed,  the 
above-mentioned  Sarva-dar9ana-sarngraha  enumerates 
six  more  schools,  which  on  account  of  their  subordi- 
nate importance  and  their  not  purely  philosophical 
character  may  be  passed  over  in  this  survey.  There 
is  question  first  of  a Vishnuitic  sect  founded  byAnan- 
datirtha  (or  Purnaprajna),  and  secondly  of  four  ^ivite 
sects,  the  names  of  whose  systems  are  Nakuli^a-Pa^u- 
pata,  Qaiva,  Pratyabhijha,  and  Rase9vara.  The  doc- 
trines of  these  five  sects  are  strongly  impregnated 
with  Vedantic  and  Samkhya  tenets.  The  sixth  system 
is  that  of  Panini,  that  is  grammatical  science,  which 
is  ranked  in  Madhava’s  Compendium  among  the  phi- 
losophies, because  the  Indian  grammarians  accepted 
the  dogma  of  the  eternity  of  sound  taught  in  the  Mi- 
mamsa,  and  because  they  developed  in  a philosoph- 
ical fashion  a theory  of  the  Yoga  system,  namely  the 
theory  of  the  Sphota,  or  the  indivisible,  unitary  factor 
latent  in  every  word  as  the  vehicle  of  its  significance. 

If  we  pass  in  review  the  plenitude  of  the  attempts 
made  in  India  to  explain  the  enigmas  of  the  world  and 
of  our  existence,  the  Samkhya  philosophy  claims  our 
first  and  chief  attention,  because  it  alone  attempts  to 
solve  its  problems  solely  by  the  means  of  reason. 
The  genuinely  philosophical  spirit  in  which  its  method 
is  manipulated  of  rising  from  the  known  factors  of  ex- 
perience to  the  unknown  by  the  path  of  logical  dem- 


30 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


onstration,  thus  to  reach  a knowledge  of  the  final 
cause,  is  acknowledged  with  admiration  by  all  inquir- 
ers who  have  seriously  occupied  themselves  with  this 
system.  In  Kapila’s  doctrine,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  the  complete  independence  and 
freedom  of  the  human  mind,  its  full  confidence  in  its 
own  powers  were  exhibited.  Although  John  Davies 
(Sankhya  Karika,  p.  V)  slightly  exaggerates  matters 
when  he  says  “The  system  of  Kapila  ....  contains 
nearly  all  that  India  has  produced  in  the  department 
of  pure  philosophy,”  yet  Kapila’s  system  may  claim, 
more  than  any  other  product  of  the  fertile  Indian 
mind,  the  interest  of  those  contemporaries  whose  view 
of  the  world  is  founded  on  the  results  of  modern  phy- 
sical science. 

As  for  those  who  feel  inclined  to  look  down  slight- 
ingly from  a monistic  point  of  view  upon  a dualistic 
conception  of  the  world,  the  words  of  E.  Roer  in  the 
Introduction  of  the  Bhashapariccheda,  p.  XVI,  may 
be  quoted  : “Though  a higher  development  of  phi- 

“losophy  may  destroy  the  distinctions  between  soul 
“ and  matter,  that  is,  may  recognise  matter,  or  what 
“is  perceived  as  matter,  as  the  same  with  the  soul  (as 
“for  instance,  Leibniz  did),  it  is  nevertheless  certain 
“that  no  true  knowledge  of  the  soul  is  possible  with- 
“out  first  drawing  a most  decided  line  of  demarca- 
“ tion  between  the  phenomena  of  matter  and  of  the 
“soul.”  This  sharp  line  of  demarcation  between  the 
two  domains  was  first  drawn  by  Kapila.  The  knowl- 


OUTLINE  OF  A HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  3 1 


edge  of  the  difference  between  body  and  soul  is  one 
condition,  and  it  is  also  an  indispensable  condition,  of 
arriving  at  a true  monism.  Every  view  of  the  world 
which  confounds  this  difference  can  supply  at  best  a 
one-sided  henism,  be  it  a spiritualism  or  an  equally 
one-sided  materialism. 


THE  CONNEXION  BETWEEN  INDIAN 
AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


HE  coincidences  between  Indian  and  Greek  phi- 


losophy  are  so  numerous  that  some  of  them  were 
noticed  immediately  after  the  Indian  systems  became 
known  to  Europeans. 

The  most  striking  resemblance — I am  almost 
tempted  to  say  sameness — is  that  between  the  doc- 
trine of  the  All-One  in  the  Upanishads  and  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  Eleatics.  Xenophanes  teaches  that 
God  and  the  Universe  are  one,  eternal,  and  unchange- 
able ; and  Parmenides  holds  that  reality  is  due  alone 
to  this  universal  being,  neither  created  nor  to  be  de- 
stroyed, and  omnipresent ; further,  that  everything 
which  exists  in  multiplicity  and  is  subject  to  mutabil- 
ity is  not  real ; that  thinking  and  being  are  identical. 
All  these  doctrines  are  congruent  with  the  chief  con- 
tents of  the  Upanishads  and  of  the  Vedanta  system, 
founded  upon  the  latter.  Quite  remarkable,  too,  in 
Parmenides  and  in  the  Upanishads  is  the  agreement 
in  style  of  presentation  ; in  both  we  find  a lofty,  force- 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


33 


ful,  graphical  mode  of  expression  and  the  employ- 
ment of  verse  to  this  end.  It  is  true,  the  ideas  about 
the  illusive  character  of  the  empirical  world  and  about 
the  identity  between  existence  and  thought  are  not 
yet  framed  into  doctrines  in  the  older  Upanishads  ; 
we  only  find  them  in  works  which  doubtlessly  are 
later  than  the  time  of  Xenophanes  and  Parmenides. 
But  ideas  from  which  those  doctrines  must  ultimately 
have  developed,  are  met  with  in  the  oldest  Upani- 
shads; for  it  is  there  that  we  find  particular  stress 
laid  upon  the  singleness  and  immutability  of  Brahman 
and  upon  the  identity  of  thought  {vijndna)  and  Brah- 
man. I therefore  do  not  consider  it  an  anachronism 
to  trace  the  philosophy  of  the  Eleatics  to  India. 

But  even  earlier  than  this  can  analogies  between 
the  Greek  and  Indian  Worlds  of  thought  be  traced. 
Thales,  the  father  of  the  Grecian  philosophy,  imagines 
everything  to  have  sprung  from  water.  This  certainly 
reminds  us  of  a mythological  idea  which  was  very 
familiar  to  the  Indians  of  the  Vedic  time ; namely, 
the  idea  of  the  primeval  water  out  of  which  the  uni- 
verse was  evolved.  Even  in  the  oldest  works  of  the 
Vedic  literature  there  are  numerous  passages  in  which 
this  primeval  water  is  mentioned,  either  producing 
itself  all  things  or  being  the  matter  out  of  which  the 
Creator  produces  them. 

Fundamental  ideas  of  the  Sarnkhya  philosophy, 
too,  are  found  among  the  Greek  physiologers.  Anaxi- 
mander assumes,  as  the  foundation  {ctpxv) 


34 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


things,  a primitive  matter,  eternal,  unfathomable  and 
indefinite,  the  ocTteipov,  from  which  the  definite  sub- 
stances arise  and  into  which  they  return  again.  If  you 
now  advert  to  the  Samkhya  doctrine,  that  the  mate- 
rial world  is  produced  by  Prakr/ti,  the  primitive  mat- 
ter, and,  when  the  time  has  come,  sinks  back  into  it, 
the  analogy  is  evident.  Likewise  the  idea  of  an  infi- 
nite succession  of  worlds  and  of  natural  opposites  is 
common  to  Anaximander  and  the  Sarnkhya  philoso- 
phy. Let  us  proceed  to  another  example.  There  is 
Heraclitus,  the  “dark  Ephesian,”  whose  doctrine,  it 
is  true,  touches  Iranian  ideas  in  its  main  points.  Nev- 
ertheless it  offers  several  parallels  with  the  views  of 
the  Sarnkhya  philosophy.  The  navra  pei  oi  Heracli- 
tus is  a suitable  expression  for  the  incessant  change  of 
the  empirical  world,  set  down  by  the  Samkhya,  and 
his  doctrine  of  the  innumerable  annihilations  and  re- 
formations of  the  Universe  is  one  of  the  best  known 
theories  of  the  Sanikhya  system.^ 

But  let  us  turn  to  the  physiologers  of  later  times. 
The  first  with  whom  we  have  to  deal  is  Empedocles, 
whose  theories  of  metempsychosis  and  evolution  may 
well  be  compared  with  the  corresponding  ideas  of  the 
Sarnkhya  philosophy.  But  most  striking  is  the  agree- 
ment between  the  following  doctrine  of  his,  “ Nothing 
can  arise  which  has  not  existed  before,  and  nothing 
existing  can  be  annihilated,”  and  that  most  character- 

iColebrooke.  Miscellaneous  Essays^  second  edition,  Vol.  I,  p.  437,  discov- 
ers other  analogies  between  the  philosophy  of  Heraclitus  and  the  S&mkhya 
doctr  IP, 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


35 


istic  one  of  the  Samkhya  system  about  the  beginning- 
less and  endless  reality  of  all  products  {sat-kdryavdda), 
or — as  we  should  put  it — about  the  eternity  and  in- 
destructibility of  matter.  Yet  quite  apart  from  this 
agreement  in  fundamental  doctrine,  Empedocles  shows 
in  general  a surprising  similarity  to  Indian  character 
and  Indian  modes  of  view.  I take  the  liberty  to  cite 
here  the  words  which  Tawney,  with  no  desire  of  prov- 
ing a direct  dependence  of  Empedocles  on  India,  ut- 
tered in  the  Calcutta  Review,  Vol.  LXIL,  p.  79:  “He 
“has  made  as  near  an  approach  as  a Greek  could 
“make  to  the  doctrines  of  Hindu  philosophy.  Indeed 
“his  personality  was  almost  as  much  Hindu  as  Greek. 
“He  was  a priest,  a prophet,  and  a physician;  he 
“often  was  seen  at  magic  rites  and  he  was  proved  to 
“have  worked  mighty  miracles.  Even  in  his  lifetime 
“he  considered  himself  to  have  purified  his  soul  by 
“devotion;  to  have  purged  away  the  impurities  of  his 
“birth;  to  have  become  in  fact  jivanmukta  (that  is, 
“one  liberated  in  lifetime).”  In  addition,  Tawney 
points  out  the  fact  that  there  sprung  up  in  Empedo- 
cles, from  the  belief  in  the  transmigration  of  souls,  a 
dislike  to  flesh  as  food. 

A connexion  may  be  traced  between  the  dualism  of 
Anaxagoras  and  that  of  the  Samkhya  philosophy.  And 
notwithstanding  his  atomism,  which  is  certainly  not 
derived  from  India,^  even  Democritus  in  the  princi- 


iFor  it  is  beyond  doubt  that  the  Indian  atomistical  systems,  Vaigeshika 
and  Ny^ya,  were  conceived  a long  time  after  Leucippus  and  Democritus. 


36  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

pies  of  his  metaphysics,  which  probably  are  rooted  in 
the  doctrines  of  Empedocles,  reminds  us  of  a Sam- 
khya  tenet,  which  is  in  almost  literal  agreement  with 
the  following:  “Nothing  can  rise  from  nothing.”^ 

The  same  is  true  of  his  conception  of  the  gods.  To 
Democritus  they  are  not  immortal,  but  only  happier 
than  men  and  longer-lived ; and  this  is  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  position  the  gods  occupy  not  only  in 
the  Sarnkhya  but  in  all  Indian  systems.  According  to 
Indian  ideas,  the  gods  are  subject  to  metempsychosis 
like  human  beings,  and  they  also  must  step  down, 
when  their  store  of  merit,  formerly  acquired,  is  ex- 
hausted. Says  (^amkara,  the  renowned  Vedantist,  in 
his  commentary  on  the  Brahmasutra  (I.,  3,  28)  : 
“Words  like  ‘Indra’  mean  only  the  holding  of  a 
certain  office,  as  the  word  ‘general’  for  instance;  he 
who  at  the  time  occupies  this  post  is  called  ‘ Indra.  ’ ” 
The  same  ideas  are  met  with  in  Epicurus,  whose 
dependency  upon  Democritus  must  needs  have  brought 
about  a resemblance.  But  also  on  matters  of  other 
kinds  Epicurus  has  laid  down  principles  which  in 
themselves  as  well  as  in  their  arguments  bear  a re- 
markable resemblance  to  Sarnkhya  doctrines.  Epi- 
curus, in  denying  that  the  world  is  ruled  by  God,  be- 
cause this  hypothesis  would  necessitate  our  investing 
the  deity  with  attributes  and  functions  that  are  incon- 
gruous with  the  idea  of  the  divine  nature,  gives  voice 
to  a doctrine  that  is  repeated  by  the  Sarnkhya  teach- 


IComp.  SSipkhyasOtra,  I.,  78. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


37 


ers  with  unfatiguing  impressiveness.  We  also  occa- 
sionally meet,  in  the  systematic  works  of  the  Sarnkhya 
philosophy,  a favorite  argumentative  formula  of  Epi- 
curus, “Everything  could  rise  from  everything  then.’ 
It  is  a question  requiring  the  most  careful  treat 
ment  to  determine  whether  the  doctrines  of  the  Greek 
philosophers,  both  those  here  mentioned  and  others, 
were  really  first  derived  from  the  Indian  world  of 
thought,  or  whether  they  were  constructed  independ- 
ently of  each  other  in  both  India  and  Greece,  their  re- 
semblance being  caused  by  the  natural  sameness  of 
human  thought.  For  my  part,  I confess  I am  inclined 
towards  the  first  opinion,  without  intending  to  pass 
an  apodictic  decision.  The  book  of  Ed.  Roth  {Ge- 
schichte  unserer  abendlandischen  Philosophie,  first  edition 
1846,  second  edition  1862),  the  numerous  works  of 
Aug.  Gladisch,  and  the  tract  of  C.  B.  Schliiter  {Ari- 
stoteles'  Metaphysik  eine  Tochter  der  Sdmkhya-Lehre  des 
Kapila,  1874) — all  go  too  far  in  their  estimation  of 
Oriental  influence  and  in  the  presentment  of  fantasti- 
cal combinations  ; moreover,  they  are  all  founded  upon 
a totally  insufficient  knowledge  of  the  Oriental  sources. ' 

1 Compare  also  the  treatise  of  Baron  v.  Eckstein,  “ Ueber  die  Grundlagen 
der  Indischen  Philosophie  und  deren  Zusaminenhang  mit  den  Philoscphemen 
der  westlichen  Volker,”  Indische  Studien,  II.,  369-388.  Even  earlier  than  this, 
such  questions  were  treated  with  astounding  boldness.  With  a facility  of 
conception  peculiar  to  him,  Sir  William  Jones  (Works,  quarto  ed.,  1799,  I., 
360,  361)  perceived  the  following  analogies:  “Of  the  philosophical  schools  it 
will  be  sulficient  here  to  remark  that  the  first  Nyaya  seems  analogous  to  the 
Peripatetic;  the  second,  sometimes  called  Vai^eshika,  to  the  Ionic;  the  two 
Mimansas,  of  which  the  second  is  often  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Vedfinta, 
to  the  Platonic;  the  first  Sdnkhya,  to  the  Italic;  and  the  second  orPdtanjala, 
to  the  Stoic  philosophy:  so  that  Gautama  corresponds  with  Aristotle ; Ka- 


38 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Nevertheless,  I consider  them  to  contain  a kernel  of 
truth,  although  it  can  hardly  be  hoped  that  this  ker- 
nel will  ever  be  laid  bare  with  scientific  accuracy. 
The  historical  possibility  of  the  Grecian  world  of  thought 
being  influenced  by  India  through  the  medium  of  Per- 
sia must  unquestionably  be  granted,  and  with  it  the 
possibility  of  the  above-mentioned  ideas  being  trans- 
ferred from  India  to  Greece.  The  connexions  between 
the  Ionic  inhabitants  of  Asia  Minor  and  those  of  the 
countries  to  the  east  of  it  were  so  various  and  numer- 
ous during  the  time  in  question  that  abundant  occa- 
sion must  have  offered  itself  for  the  exchange  of  ideas 
between  the  Greeks  and  the  Indians,  then  living  in 
Persia.^ 

Add  to  this  the  Greek  tradition  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  philosophers  with  whom  we  have  dealt, 
Thales,  Empedocles,  Anaxagoras,  Democritus,  and 
others,  undertook  journeys,  sometimes  of  considerable 
duration,  into  Oriental  countries  for  the  sake  of  mak- 
ing philosophical  studies,  and  the  probability  of  our 

nada,  with  Thales;  Jaimini,  with  Socrates;  Vyasa,  with  Plato;  Kapila,  with 
Pythagoras;  and  Patanjali,  with  Zeno.  But  an  accurate  comparison  between 
the  Grecian  and  Indian  schools  would  require  a considerable  volume.” 

lln  Ueberweg's  Grundriss  dcr  Geschichte  der  Philosophie,  revised  and 
edited  by  Heinze,  sixth  edition,  I.,  36,  I am  happy  to  find  the  following  pas- 
sage; “With  much  better  reason  we  could  suppose  a considerable  Oriental 
influence  in  the  form  of  a direct  communication  of  the  older  Grecian  philos- 
ophers with  Oriental  nations.”  But  I am  sorry  to  say,  I cannot  concur  with 
the  opinion  of  the  author,  expressed  on  the  same  page,  that  a perfect  and  de- 
cisive solution  of  this  problem  might  be  expected  from  the  progress  of  Orien- 
tal studies.  For  even  the  closest  acquaintance  with  the  Oriental  systems  and 
religions  cannot  do  away  with  the  alternative,  before  mentioned  on  page  37; 
and,  with  one  single  exception  which  I shall  presently  consider,  the  means 
for  fixing  the  limits  of  these  foreign  influences  upon  the  older  Grecian  phi- 
losophy are  utterly  wanting. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY.  39 

supposition  that  these  Grecian  philosophers  acquired 
Indian  ideas  on  Persian  ground  will  be  increased.  But 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  if  they  really  did  borrow  for- 
eign ideas,  they  well  understood  the  art  of  impressing 
on  them  the  stamp  of  the  Grecian  intellect. 

Hitherto  I have  purposely  omitted  a name  which 
is  much  more  intimately  connected  with  this  question 
than  the  others  I have  mentioned.  While,  for  the  de- 
rivation of  Indian  ideas  in  the  case  of  the  Grecian 
physiologers,  the  Eleatics  and  Epicurus,  I could  only 
assume  a certain  probability  in  favor  of  my  hypothesis, 
there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  about  the  dependence  of 
Pythagoras  upon  Indian  philosophy  and  science  ; and 
all  the  more  so,  as  the  Greeks  themselves  considered 
his  doctrines  as  foreign.  It  was  Sir  William  Jones 
(Works,  8vo  ed..  III.,  236)1  who  first  pointed  out  the 
analogies  between  the  Samkhya  system  and  the  Pytha- 
gorean philosophy,  starting  from  the  name  of  the  In- 
dian system,  which  is  derived  from  the  word  satnkhyd, 
“number,”  and  from  the  fundamental  importance  at- 
tached to  number  by  Pj'thagoras.  After  Jones,  Cole- 
brooke  {^Miscellaneous  Essays,  second  edition,  I.,  436- 
437)  expressed  with  even  more  emphasis  the  idea  that 
the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  might  be  rooted  in  India. 
He  says : “ . . . . Adverting  to  what  has  come  to  us 
of  the  history  of  Pythagoras,  I shall  not  hesitate  to 
acknowledge  an  inclination  to  consider  the  Grecian 
to  have  been.  . . . indebted  to  Indian  instructors.” 


1 See  Colebrooke,  Miscellaneous  Essays^  second  edition,  I.,  241. 


40 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Colebrooke  gives  the  reason  for  his  opinion  {loc.  cit., 
441  et  seq.)  in  the  following  passage,  which  seems  to 
me  to  be  sufficiently  important  to  quote  in  full: 

“It  may  be  here  remarked,  by  the  way,  that  the  Pythagore- 
ans, and  Ocellus  in  particular,  distinguish  as  parts  of  the  world, 
the  heaven,  the  earth,  and  the  interval  between  them,  which  they 
term  lofty  and  aerial.  . . . Here  we  have  precisely  the  heaven, 
earth,  and  (transpicuous)  intermediate  region  of  the  Hindus. 

“Pythagoras,  as  after  him  Ocellus,  peoples  the  middle  or 
aerial  region  with  demons,  as  heaven  with  gods,  and  the  earth 
with  men.  Here  again  they  agree  precisely  with  the  Hindus,  who 
place  the  gods  above,  man  beneath,  and  spiritual  creatures,  flitting 
unseen,  in  the  intermediate  region. 

“ Nobody  needs  to  be  reminded,  that  Pythagoras  and  his  suc- 
cessors held  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  as  the  Hindus  uni- 
versally do  the  same  tenet  of  transmigration  of  souls. 

“ They  agree  likewise  generally  in  distinguishing  the  sensitive, 
material  organ  (manas)  from  the  rational  and  conscious  living 
soul  {Jivdi?nan):  ■&v/i6g  and  ipp^  of  Pythagoras;  one  perishing  with 
the  body,  the  other  immortal. 

“Like  the  Hindus,  Pythagoras,  with  other  Greek  philoso- 
phers, assigned  a subtle  ethereal  clothing  to  the  soul  apart  from 
the  corporeal  part,  and  a grosser  clothing  to  it  when  united  with 
the  body ; the  sukshma  (or  Imga)  (arira  and  sthula  (arira  of  the 
Sankhyas  and  the  rest.  ...  I should  be  disposed  to  conclude  that 
the  Indians  were  in  this  instance  teachers  rather  than  learners." 

Wilson  (^Quarterly  Oriental  Magazine,  IV.,  ii,  12, 
and  Sdnkhya  Kdrikd,  p.  XI)  only  incidentally  touches 
on  the  analogies  pointed  out  by  Jones  and  Colebrooke. 

Barthdlemy  Saint-Hilaire  goes  a little  more  into 
detail  regarding  one  point.  He  treats,  in  his  Pre- 
mier Mejyioire  sur  le  Sdnkhya  (Paris,  1852,  pp.  512, 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


41 


513,  521,  522),  of  Pythagoras’s  theory  of  metempsy- 
chosis, and  he  is  right  in  observing  that  the  greater 
probability  is  on  the  side  of  its  Indian  origin,  and  not 
on  its  Egyptian  one.  Further,  Barthelemy  finds  Sam- 
khya  ideas  in  Plato,  in  the  “Phaedon,”  “Phsedrus,  ” 
“Timaeus,”  and  in  the  “ Republic  ” : “ Les  analogies 
sont  assez  nombreuses  et  assez  profondes  pour  qu’il 
soit  impossible  de  les  regarder  comme  accidentelles  ” 
(p.  514).  He  points  out  that  the  ideas  of  redemption 
and  bondage  are  doctrines  both  of  Plato  and  of  the 
Samkhya  philosophy,  inasmuch  as  they  denote  the 
liberation  of  soul  from  matter  and  the  confinement  of 
soul  by  matter ; and  that  the  idea  of  metempsychosis 
is  common  to  both,  together  with  that  of  the  begin- 
ningless and  endless  existence  of  the  soul.  On  p.  521 
Barthelemy  then  says  that  Plato,  the  great  admirer  of 
the  Pythagorean  school,  took  these  doctrines  from 
Pythagoras  ] but  if  we  ask  where  Pythagoras  obtained 
them,  all  the  appearances  are,  in  his  opinion,  in  favor 
of  India.^ 

The  supposition  that  Pythagoras  derived  his  the- 
ory of  transmigration  from  India,  was  several  times 
broached  in  older  works  besides.  ^ 

In  a much  more  exhaustive  and  comprehensive 

lOne  instance  may  be  mentioned  here  which  E.  Roer  {Bibliotheca  Indica, 
Vol.  XV.,  p.  91)  pointed  out,  that  the  striking  coincidence  of  the  fine  com- 
parison found  in  the  Katha  Upanishad,  “ of  the  body  with  a car,  the  soul  with 
the  charioteer,  the  senses  with  the  horses,  the  mind  with  the  reins,  etc.” 
with  the  similar  comparison  in  the  Ph2edrus. 

2 See  Lucian  Scherman,  Materialien  zur  Geschichte  der  Indischen  Visions- 
literatur,  p.  26,  note  i. 


42 


THJ£  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


manner,  but  evidently  without  knowledge  of  his  pred- 
ecessors, Leopold  von  Schroeder  has  also  treated  this 
subject  in  an  essay,  Pythagoras  und  die  Inder,  (Leip- 
sic,  1884),  which,  notwithstanding  the  contrary  opin- 
ion of  Professor  Weber,i  seems  to  me  to  be  perfectly 
correct  in  its  main  points.  From  Schroeder’s  combi- 
nations it  follows,  that  almost  all  the  doctrines  ascribed 
to  Pythagoras,  both  religio-philosophical  and  mathe- 
matical, were  current  in  India  as  early  as  the  sixth 
century  before  Christ,  and  even  previously.  As  the 
most  important  of  these  doctrines  appear  in  Pytha- 
goras without  connexion  or  explanatory  background, 
whilst  in  India  they  are  rendered  comprehensible  by 
the  intellectual  life  of  the  times,  Schroeder  conclu- 
sively pronounces  India  to  be  the  birthplace  of  the 
Pythagorean  ideas.  Of  course,  no  power  of  convic- 
tion would  rest  in  single  traits  of  agreement ; — and  for 
that  reason  I did  not  venture  to  give  any  definite  opin- 
ion with  regard  to  the  dependence  of  the  other  phi- 
losophers mentioned  on  India  ; — but  with  Pythagoras, 
it  is  the  quantity  of  coincidences  that  enforces  convic- 
tion ; and  the  more  so,  as  the  concordance  is  also  to 
be  noticed  in  insignificant  and  arbitrary  matters  which 
cannot  well  be  expected  to  appear  independently  in 
two  different  places.  Here  I must  refer  to  Schroeder’s 
detailed  argumentation  and  can  only  indicate  the  chief 
features  which  Pythagoras  and  the  ancient  Indians 

\ Literarisches  Centralblatt,  1884,  p.  1563-1565.  Compare  also  “DieGrie- 
chen  in  Indien,*’  Sitzungsberickte  der  Kgl.  Preussischen  Akademie  der  IVissen- 
scha/ten  zu  Berlin^  XXXVII.,  pp.  923-926. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


43 


have  in  common  : the  theory  of  the  transmigration  of 
souls,  in  which  there  is  harmony  here  and  there  even 
in  noticeable  details,  and  which  Pythagoras  cannot 
have  taken  from  Egypt  for  the  simple  reason  that 
modern  Egyptology  teaches  us,  that — in  spite  of  the 
well-known  passage  in  Herodotus — the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians were  not  familiar  with  the  doctrine  of  metem- 
psychosis ; further,  the  curious  prohibition  of  eating 
beans,  the  npos  rjkiov  rerpappivov  pp  opixsiv^  the 
doctrine  of  the  five  elements,  i.  e.,  the  assumption  of 
ether  as  the  fifth  element,  which  obtains  in  the  Pytha- 
gorean school  as  well  as  ever5^where  in  India  \ above 
all  the  so-called  P3’thagorean  theorem,  developed  in 
the  ^ulvasutras^;  the  irrational  number  V 2 ; then  the 
whole  character  of  the  religio-philosophical  fraternity, 
founded  by  Pythagoras,  which  is  analogous  to  the 
Indian  orders  of  the  time ; and  at  last  the  mystical 
speculation,  peculiar  to  the  Pythagorean  school,  which 
bears  a striking  resemblance  to  the  fantastical  notions 
greatly  in  favor  with  the  so-caUed  Brahmana  litera- 
ture. 

Schroeder  proceeds  with  a few  more  analogies  of 
lesser  value  and  of  doubtful  nature,  and  finally  he 
is  certainly  mistaken  in  the  two  following  points. 


1 Weber’s  polemic  against  Schroeder’ s treatise  is  chiefly  based  on  the 
fact  that  he  underestimates  the  age  of  the  Culvasutras  which  describe  the 
mensurations  of  the  sacriflcial  compound  that  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  re- 
nowned tenet.  The  Culvasfltras  are  not  appendages  to  the  Crautasfltras,  but 
integrant  parts  of  the  great  ritual  complexes,  each  of  which  has  been  com- 
posed by  one  author.  The  material,  offered  to  us  in  the  Culvasfltras,  is  of 
course  still  much  older  than  these  compendiums  themselves. 


44 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


First,  he  holds  that  Pythagoras  acquired  his  knowl- 
edge in  India  itself, — an  idea  excluded  at  once  by 
reference  to  the  history  of  ancient  traffic.^  The  only 
country  in  which  Pythagoras  could  possibly  have  met 
his  Indian  teachers,  is  Persia,  to  which  place  I above 
found  myself  obliged  to  ascribe  the  eventual  media- 
tion between  Indian  ideas  and  the  Greek  physiologers 
and  Eleatics.  The  other  point  is  that  of  the  connex- 
ion between  the  Pythagorean  doctrine  and  the  Sam- 
khya  philosophy,  supposed  by  Schroeder.  It  may  be 
that  Pythagoras  acquired  his  knowledge  of  the  the- 
ories of  metempsychosis  and  of  the  five  elements  from 
adherents  of  the  Sarnkhya  system  ; but  further  rela- 
tions are  not  to  be  discovered.  Schroeder*  tries,  on 
pp.  72-76,  to  bring  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  Pyth- 
agorean philosophy,  that  number  is  the  essence  of  all 
things,  into  connexion  with  a fictitious,  older  form  of 
the  Sarnkhya  philosophy.  He  says  p.  74  : “To  me  it 
appears  to  be  evident  from  the  name  Sarnkhya,  that 
number  {samkhyd)  originally  had  a deciding,  funda- 
mental importance  in  this  system,  although  the  later 
system,  the  books  of  which  appeared  more  than  a 
thousand  years  after  the  pre-Buddhistic  Sarnkhya  doc- 
trine of  Kapila,  has  effaced  this  characteristic  trait 
and  entirely  lost  it.”  In  stating  this,  Schroeder  has 
overlooked  the  fact  that  those  Upanishads  which  are 
full  of  Sarnkhya  doctrines  and  which  must  be  dated 

iThe  Grecian  tradition  of  Pythagoras  having  visited  India  did  not  arise 
before  the  Alexandrine  time. 

2 As  before  him  Sir  William  Jones;  comp.  p.  39  above. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


45 


only  a few  hundred  years  later  than  Buddha,  are,  in 
the  passages  in  question,  also  wanting  in  what  he  calls 
the  “original”  characteristic  trait,  and  that  they  are 
in  harmony  with  that  system  which  he  calls  the  ‘ ‘ later 
one.”  He  himself  declares  this  theory  to  be  a very 
bold  one,  but  in  reality  it  is  perfectl)’  baseless.  There 
is  not  the  smallest  particle  of  evidence  for  the  hypoth- 
esis that  there  ever  existed  a Samkhya  system  different 
from  that  of  our  sources,  which  acquired  its  name 
from  the  mania  for  enumeration  peculiar  to  it.  On 
the  contrary,  weighty  reasons  speak  against  the  sup- 
position that  our  system  has  undergone  noticeable 
changes  in  the  course  of  time.  If  ever  we  should  try 
to  fabricate  some  historical  link  between  the  Sarnkhya 
system  and  the  Pythagorean  numeral  philosophy,  the 
following  idea  only  could  occur  to  us.  The  doctrines 
of  Pythagoras  : Number  is  the  essence  of  things,  the 
elements  of  numbers  are  to  be  considered  as  the  ele- 
ments of  everything  existing,  the  whole  universe  is 
harmony  and  number — these  doctrines  are  unique  in 
the  history  of  human  thought,  and,  if  their  meaning 
should  be  something  else  than  “ everything  existing 
is  ruled  by  the  mathematical  law,”  they  might  be  re- 
garded as  unphilosophical.  It  therefore  does  not  ap- 
pear to  me  as  a thing  utterly  beyond  possibility,  that 
those  ideas  took  root  in  a misunderstanding  of  Pyth- 
agoras. It  is  possible  that  he  misinterpreted  the  words 
of  his  Indian  teacher  : “The  Samkhya  philosophy  is 
named  after  the  enumeration  of  the  material  princi- 


46 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


pies ’’into:  “Number  is  considered  the  essence  of 
the  material  principles  in  the  Sarnkhya  system.”  But 
this  surely  is  nothing  but  a supposition. 

It  is  Lassen  who  in  his  Indische  Alterthumskunde 
denies  every  Indian  influence  upon  Grecian  philoso- 
phy in  ante-Christian  times,  but  adopts  it  (III.,  p.  379 
et  seq.)  for  the  Christian  Gnosticism  and  Neo-Platon- 
ism. As  lively  relations  between  Alexandria  and  In- 
dia are  sufficiently  attested  for  this  time,  it  is  indeed 
impossible  to  doubt  Indian  influence  upon  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Gnostics  and  Neo-Platonists. 

Let  us  first  dwell  upon  Gnosticism.  Lassen  holds 
that  the  Indian  elements  in  the  Gnostic  systems  were 
derived  from  Buddhism  which  (in  the  secondary,  mod- 
ified form  it  had  assumed  at  that  time)  undoubtedly 
exercised  a considerable  influence  upon  the  intellec- 
tual life  of  Alexandria.  This  influence  is  most  clearly 
perceptible  in  the  ideas  formed  by  the  Gnostics  about 
the  many  spiritual  worlds  and  the  numerous  heavens. 
These  ideas  are  certainly  derived  from  the  fantastical 
cosmogony  of  later  Buddhism.  But  I do  not  admit 
the  great  importance  which  Lassen  attributes  to  Bud- 
dhism in  the  formation  of  the  Gnostic  systems.  It  is 
my  opinion  that,  in  Lassen’s  expositions  the  Sarnkhya 
philosophy  does  not  get  all  that  is  due  to  it.  If  we 
keep  it  in  mind  that  the  centuries  in  which  Gnosticism 
was  developed — that  is,  the  second  and  third  century 
after  Christ — are  coincident  with  the  period  during 
which  the  Sarnkhya  philosophy  flourished  in  India, 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


47 


many  things  will  appear  in  a different  light  to  us,  than 
was  the  case  with  Lassen. ^ On  p.  385  he  establishes 
a connexion  between  the  doctrines  of  Buddhism  and 
the  Gnostic  contrast  of  soul  and  matter.  But  is  it  not 
more  natural  to  remember  here  the  ideas  which  form 
the  foundation  of  the  Sarnkhya  philosophy?  Another 
point  with  which  we  have  to  deal  is  the  identification 
of  soul  and  light,  met  with  among  almost  all  Gnostics. 
Lassen  has  brought  forward  some  remote  and  singu- 
lar speculations  from  the  misty  and  imaginative  realm 
of  later  Buddhism,  to  make  plausible  the  Buddhistic 
influence  upon  this  Gnostic  doctrine.  I cannot  say 
that  this  endeavor  has  been  a successful  one.  How 
very  simple  and  natural  the  idea  appears  with  which 
a mere  glance  at  the  Sarnkhya  philosophy  furnishes 
us  ! For  there  we  are  taught  something  which  was 
evidently  not  known  to  Lassen  ; viz.,  that  the  soul  is 
light  (^praka^a),’^  which  means,  that  the  mechanical 
processes  of  the  internal  organs  are  illuminated  or 
made  conscious  by  the  soul.  This  idea  of  the  Sarn- 
khyas,  that  soul  and  light  are  the  same,  or — to  put  it 
otherwise  — that  the  soul  consists  of  light,  we  un- 


lOn  the  other  hand,  I must  confess  that  I am  unable  to  trace  that  re- 
semblance between  the  Sftrakhya  philosophy  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Valen- 
tinians  on  the  origin  of  matter,  which  is  stated  by  Lassen  on  pp.  400.  401.  The 
agreements  of  the  Sarnkhya  system  with  that  of  the  Ophites,  collected  by 
Lassen  in  the  following  pages,  likewise  appear  to  me  open  to  doubt. 

2 Comp.  SamkhyasQtra,  I.,  145  : “[Soul  is]  light,  because  the  non-intellec- 
tual and  light  do  not  belong  together,”  and  VI.,  50:  “ Being  distinct  from  the 
non-intellectual,  [soul]  which  has  the  nature  of  thought  illuminates  the  non- 
intellectual.” The  commentator  Vijnanabhikshu  makes  the  following  re- 
mark on  the  first  passage : “ The  soul  is  in  its  essence  light  like  the  sun,'  ’ etc. 


48 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


doubtedly  have  to  regard  as  the  source  of  the  similar 
idea  of  the  Gnostics. 

In  regard  to  another  point,  Lassen  (on  pp.  384, 
398  et  seq.)  has  rightly  acknowledged  the  influence  of 
the  Samkhya  philosophy  upon  Gnosticism.  It  was 
Ferd.  Chr.  Baur  who  even  before  him  (in  his  work, 
Die  christliche  Gnosis,  pp.  54,  158  et  seq.)  had  noticed 
the  remarkable  agreement  of  the  classification  of  men 
into  the  three  classes  of  TtvsvptaTiHOT^  ijjvxmoi,  and 
vXiHol,  peculiar  to  several  Gnostics,  with  the  Sam- 
khya  doctrine  of  the  three  Gunas.  As  I have  entered 
in  detail  upon  this  theory  in  my  book  on  the  Sarnkhya 
philosophy,  I only  wish  to  state  here  that  in  this  sys- 
tem every  individual  is  considered  as  appertaining  to 
the  sphere  of  one  of  the  three  powers,  according  as 
the  luminous,  serene,  and  joyful,  or  the  passionate, 
fickle,  and  painful,  or  again  the  dark,  motionless,  and 
dull  character  predominates.  There  is  also  another 
interesting  parallel  to  be  found. ^ It  is  that  between 
the  Samkhya  doctrine  according  to  which  the  Buddhi, 
Aharnkara,  and  Manas,  that  is,  the  substrata  of  the 
psychic  processes,  have  an  independent  existence  dur- 
ing the  first  stages  of  the  evolution  of  the  universe, 
and  the  Gnostic  tenet  which  allots  personal  existence 
to  intellect,  will,  and  so  on.  I am  sure  that  those  who 
are  better  acquainted  with  the  Gnostic  systems  than 
I am,  would  be  successful  in  finding  some  more  points 

1 Mentioned  by  Fitz-Edward  Hall  in  his  translation  of  Nehemiah  Nlla- 
kantha  S'dstrl  Gore’s  A Rational  Refutation  of  the  Hindu  Philosophical  Syt- 
tems,  Calcutta,  1862,  p.  84. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


49 


of  contact,  upon  studying  the  doctrines  of  the  Sam- 
khya  philosophy  in  detail. 

In  passing  to  Neo-Platonism,  we  find  that  here 
Lassen  has  valued  the  influence  of  the  Samkhya  doc- 
trines to  its  full  extent.  The  views  of  Plotinus  (204- 
269  A.  D.),  the  chief  of  the  Neo-Platonists,  are  in  part 
in  perfect  agreement  with  those  of  the  Samkhya  sys- 
tem. The  following  sentences  must  be  placed  here : 
the  soul  is  free  from  sorrows  and  passions,  untouched 
by  all  affections ; for  the  sufferings  of  the  world  be- 
long to  matter.  By  his  philosophy  Plotinus  promises 
to  deliver  the  world  from  misery,  and  this  is  the  same 
purpose  as  that  of  the  Sarnkhya  system  which  strives 
to  lead  men  to  discriminative  knowledge  and  with  it 
to  redemption,  that  is  to  say,  to  absolute  painlessness. 
Though  all  Brahman  systems  have  made  it  their  task 
to  liberate  mankind  from  the  miseries  of  mundane  ex- 
istence by  means  of  some  special  knowledge,  yet  none 
of  them  have  so  much  emphasised  the  principle  of 
this  life  being  a life  full  of  misery,  as  the  Sarnkhya 
s}'stem ; none  of  them  have  defined  the  word  “re- 
demption” with  the  same  precision  as  “the  absolute 
cessation  of  pain.” 

On  page  428  Lassen  establishes  a connexion  be- 
tween a Vedantic  notion  and  the  sentence  of  Plotinus, 
that  one  may  also  be  happy  when  sleeping,  because 
the  soul  does  not  sleep.  But  there  is  no  necessity  for 
it.  The  same  doctrine  appertains  to  the  Samkhya  sys- 


50 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


tem.^  Deep  dreamless  sleep  is  there,  too,  stated  to  be 
homogeneous  with  redemption,  insomuch  as  in  these 
two  states  the  affections  and  functions  of  the  inner 
organs  have  stopped,  and  pain  with  them.  Consider- 
ing the  many  cases  in  which  the  dependence  of  Ploti- 
nus upon  the  Sarnkhya  system  is  established,  we  need 
not  hesitate  to  derive  this  idea  from  the  Sarnkhya  sys- 
tem as  well.  These  numerous  agreements  must,  how- 
ever, make  us  doubly  careful  not  to  expand  too  much 
the  limits  of  this  dependence ; and  for  that  reason  I 
am  bound  to  say  that  the  parallels  which  Lassen  has 
drawn  (p.  418  et  seq.)  between  the  theory  of  emana- 
tion, set  up  by  Plotinus,  and  the  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment in  the  Sarnkhya  system  appear  to  me  to  be  out 
of  place  in  the  series  of  coincidences  here  treated. 

Though  there  is  a good  evidence  of  harmony  be- 
tween the  pure  Sarnkhya  doctrine  and  the  Neo-Platon- 
ism of  Plotinus,  there  exists  even  a closer  connexion 
between  the  latter  one  and  that  branch  of  the  Sarnkhya 
philosophy  which  has  assumed  a theistical  and  asceti- 
cal  character,  and  has,  under  the  name  of  the  Yoga 
philosophy,  acquired  an  independent  place  among  the 
Brahman  systems.  The  morality  of  Plotinus  is  alto- 
gether of  an  ascetic  nature.  This  feature  might  be 
explained,  it  is  true,  by  an  inclination  towards  Stoi- 
cism ; but  on  account  of  its  agreement  with  the  Yoga 
system  in  the  following  points,  this  ascetic  coloring 
has  most  probably  its  foundation  in  the  influence  of 


ISee  SSmkhyasQtra,  V.,  Ii6. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY.  5 1 

this  system.  Plotinus  pronounces  all  worldly  things 
to  be  vain  and  void  of  value,  and  he  therefore  calls 
upon  us  to  throw  off  the  influence  of  the  phenomenal 
world.  If  we  keep  off  all  external  impressions  and  by 
way  of  concentration  of  thinking  overcome  the  multi- 
plicity of  ideas,  resulting  from  these  impressions,  the 
highest  knowledge  will  fill  our  mind,  in  the  form  of  a 
sudden  ecstatic  perception  of  God.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  difference  between  this  theory  and  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Yoga  philosophy.  The  i'naraGt^  of  Plo- 
tinus or  the  anXcoGtS  the  union  with  the  deity”)  is 
the  pratibhd  or  the  prdtibham  jndnatn  of  the  Yoga  sys- 
tem (“the  immediate,  universal  knowledge  of  truth, 
which,  after  methodically  exercising  the  ascetic  Yoga- 
praxis,  comes  upon  us  unexpectedly”).^ 

Besides  Plotinus,  we  principally  have  to  consider 
his  most  distinguished  disciple  Porphyry  (from  232- 
304),^  who,  even  more  than  his  master,  has  followed 
the  Samkhya  philosophy.  With  him  the  Indian  influ- 
ence can  be  proved  directly;  for  he  has  made  use  of  the 
treatise  of  Bardesanes,  from  which  he  copied  an  im- 
portant passage  about  the  Brahmans.  And  Barde- 
sanes had  acquired  authentic  information  about  India 
from  the  Indian  ambassadors  who  were  sent  to  the 
Emperor  Antoninus  Pius.  In  all  principal  points  Por- 
phyry agrees  with  Plotinus,  as,  for  instance,  in  his 
demand  to  give  up  the  external  world  and  to  seek 


1 See  YogasUtra^  III.,  p.  33, 

2 Comp.  Lassen,  p.  430  et  seq. 


52 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


truth  by  contemplation ; but  Porphyry  records  in  a 
purer  way  than  his  master  the  Sarnkhya  doctrine  of 
the  contrast  between  the  spiritual  and  the  material 
world.  His  dependency  upon  the  Sarnkhya  philoso- 
phy is  also  to  be  noticed  in  his  doctrines  of  the  reign 
of  the  spiritual  over  the  material,  of  the  omnipresence 
of  the  soul  when  liberated  from  matter,  and  of  the 
beginninglessness  of  the  world.  ^ Here  we  must  also 
note  the  interdiction  to  kill  animals,  made  by  Por- 
phyry, and  his  rejection  of  sacrifices.  To  be  sure, 
Lassen  says,  on  page  432,  that  Porphyry  here  followed 
the  Buddhistic  law  ; but  as  we  are  dealing  with  things 
which  Buddha  adopted  from  the  Sarnkhya  system,'^ 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  derive  them  from 
the  primary,  instead  of  the  secondary  source. 

I think  we  need  not  enter  upon  the  resemblances 
which  Lassen  discovers  (p.  434  et  seq. ) between  In- 
dian ideas  and  the  later  Neo-Platonist  Abammon 
(about  300);  for  this  fantastical  and  superstitious 
teacher,  and  the  ideas  peculiar  to  him,  do  not  offer 
any  but  doubtful  points  of  contact  with  Indian  mod- 
els. Only  one  opinion  of  Abammon  comes  into  con- 
sideration, and  that  even  was  already  suggested  by 
his  predecessors.  It  is  the  idea  that  people  who  are 
filled  with  a holy  enthusiasm  attain  miraculous  pow- 
ers. “ Here  we  clearly  perceive  the  coincidence  with 

IThis  last  point  is  not  mentioned  by  Lassen. 

2Compare  the  preface  to  my  translation  of  Aniruddha’s  Commentary  on 
the  S&mkhyasutras,  etc.,  Calcutta,  1892. 

3 See  Lassen,  p.  438. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


53 


the  conviction,  universal  in  India,  that  miraculous 
powers  are  to  be  acquired  by  the  methodical  exercise 
of  the  Yoga-praxis.  The  Yoga  philosophy  promises, 
as  the  fruit  of  such  exercise,  the  acquisition  of  the 
faculty  of  making  one’s  self  invisible,  infinitely  large, 
or  infinitely  light,  of  assuming  other  bodies,  of  chang- 
ing the  course  of  nature,  and  the  attainment  of  other 
supernatural  powers. 

I cannot  take  leave  of  Neo-Platonism  without  men- 
tioning a highly  important  point  of  agreement  with 
the  Indian  world  of  thought,  which,  it  is  true,  neither 
concerns  the  Samkhya  philosophy  nor  Buddhism,  but 
which  nevertheless  impressively  supports  our  argu- 
ments, as  it  is  a most  significant  link  in  the  series  ol 
Grecian  loans  from  India.  In  a little  essay  by  Profes- 
sor Weber,  Vdch  und  \oyoS,  Indische  Studien,  Vol.  IX., 
the  author,  with  great  caution — “without  intending 
in  the  least  to  settle  this  question  ” — has  put  forward 
the  supposition  that  the  Indian  conception  of  the  vdch 
(a  feminine  noun,  meaning  voice,  speech,  word)  may 
have  had  some  influence  upon  the  idea  of  the  \oyoS 
which  appears  in  Neo-Platonism  and  passed  from 
there  into  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  Weber  starts  from 
the  hymn  Rigveda,  X.,  125,  in  which  the  Vach  already 
appears  as  an  active  power,  and  he  refers  to  the  per- 
sonification of  the  “divine  Vach’’  or  language,  as  the 
vehicle  of  priestly  eloquence  and  wisdom.  He  then 
traces  the  development  of  this  idea  through  the  Brah- 
mana  literature,  where  the  Vach  becomes  more  and 


54 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


more  similar  to  the  Ao^'OS’  in  the  beginning  of  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John.  In  the  numerous  passages  quoted 
by  Weber,  the  Vach  appears  as  the  consort  of  Praja- 
pati,  the  creator,  “in  union  with  whom  and  by  whom 
he  accomplishes  his  creation;  yea,  the  Vach  is  even 
ultimately  the  most  spiritual  begetter,  and  now  and 
then  she  is  placed  absolutely  at  the  beginning  of  all 
things,  even  above  the  personal  bearer  of  her  own 
self.”  Weber  concludes  this  pithy  article  with  the  fol- 
lowing words : “There  are  certainly  no  difficulties  in 
understanding  the  cosmogonical  position  of  the  Vach 
which  is  simply  to  be  conceived  as  the  culmination  of 
glorifying  priestly  meditation  and  knowledge,  while 
the  same  position  of  the  Xoyo?,  on  the  other  hand, 
appears  without  any  suggestion  as  to  its  origin  or  de- 
velopment.” This  idea  of  Weber’s  I hold  to  be  an  ex- 
ceedingly happy  one,  and,  in  my  opinion,  it  deserves 
another  name  than  that  of  a mere  supposition.  Only 
I may  be  allowed,  in  this  connexion,  to  set  one  point 
aright.  It  is  not  Neo-Platonism  in  which  the  idea  of 
the  Xoyo';  first  appears,  but  it  is  derived  there  from 
the  doctrines  of  Philo,  which  to  a great  extent  are  the 
basis  of  Neo-Platonism.  Philo  again  adopted  the 
Xoyos  doctrine  from  the  Stoics,  and  they  took  it  from 
Heraclitus,  to  whom  the  Xoyos  already  was  the  eternal 
law  of  the  course  of  the  world.  ^ My  opinion,  men- 
tioned above,  of  Heraclitus  being  influenced  by  Indian 


1 Comp,  Max  Heinze,  Die  Lehre  vom  Logos  in  der  griechischen  Philosophie, 
Oldenberg,  1872. 


INDIAN  AND  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY. 


55 


thought,  meets,  accordingly,  with  a welcome  confirm- 
ation. If  the  whole  theory  is  right — and  I think  it  is 
— the  derivation  of  the  Xoyo^  theory  from  India  must 
be  put  more  than  five  hundred  years  earlier  than 
would  appear  from  Weber’s  statement. 

Among  the  Indian  doctrines  which  we  believed  we 
could  trace  in  Greek  philosophy,  those  of  the  Samkhya 
system  occupy  the  first  place;  agreeably  to  their  char- 
acter, they  presented  the  smallest  difficulties  when 
transplanted  to  a foreign  ground  and  embodied  into  a 
new  world  of  thought.  This  influence  of  the  Sarnkhya 
and  Indian  philosophy  in  general  upon  Occidental 
philosophy  does  not  extend  beyond  Neo-Platonism. 
And  — except  the  Buddhistic  coloring  of  Schopen- 
hauer’s and  Hartmann’s  philosophy — even  in  our  mod- 
ern time  we  cannot  notice  any  real  influence  exercised 
by  Indian  ideas.  Even  in  the  compendiums  of  the 
general  history  of  philosophy  the  Indian  systems  are 
usually  entirely  omitted.  It  now  need  not  be  proved 
that  this  is  a mistake.  An  explanation  of  this  indiffer- 
ence maybe  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Indian  systems 
became  known  in  Europe  and  America  only  in  their 
roughest  outlines  in  this  century,  and  that  even  now 
only  Buddhism  and  two  Brahman  systems,  Vedanta 
and  Samkhya,  have  been  laid  open  to  study  by  detailed 
works. 

I have  confined  myself  here  to  seeking  out,  and  so 
far  as  possible,  to  proving  the  historical  connexion  be- 
tween Indian  and  Greek  philosophy.  But  to  follow 


56 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


up  the  internal  relations  of  the  Indian  doctrines  to  the 
whole  Occidental  philosophy  and  to  trace  the  occa- 
sional agreements  in  detail,  that  would  have  been  a 
task  the  performance  of  which  surpasses  the  limits  of 
this  essay. 


HINDU  MONISM. 

WHO  WERK  ITS  AUTHORS,  PRIESTS  OR 
WARRIORS? 

VIONG  all  the  forms  of  government,  class  govern- 


ment is  the  worst.  Carthage  was  governed  by 
merchants,  and  the  mercantile  spirit  of  its  policy  finally 
led  to  the  destruction  of  the  city.  Sparta  was  gov- 
erned by  warriors,  and  in  spite  of  the  glory  of  Ther- 
mopylae it  was  doomed  to  stagnation.  India  was 
governed  by  priests,  and  the  weal  of  the  nation  was 
sacrificed  to  their  interests  with  reckless  indifference. 
It  appears  that  for  the  welfare  of  the  community  the 
harmonious  co-operation  of  all  classes  is  not  only  de- 
sirable but  also  indispensable. 

Yet  it  is  often  claimed  that  mankind  is  greatly  in- 
debted to  nations  or  states  ruled  by  class  government 
for  having  worked  out  the  particular  occupation  of  the 
ruling  class  to  a perfection  which  otherwise  it  would 
not  have  reached.  This  is  at  least  doubtful. 

Carthage  was  eager  to  establish  monopolies,  but 
she  contributed  little  to  the  higher  development  of 
commerce  and  trade  among  mankind. 


58 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Sparta  reared  brave  men,  but  was  not  progressive, 
even  in  the  science  of  war,  and  was  worsted  by  so 
weak  an  adversary  as  Thebes.  Modern  strategists 
could  learn  something  from  Epaminondas,  but  little, 
if  anything,  from  the  Lacedaemonians. 

Priestcraft  has  attained  to  a power  in  India  unpar- 
alleled in  the  history  of  other  nations,  and  it  is  no  ex- 
aggeration to  say  that  priest-rule  was  the  ruin  of  the 
country.  Yet  the  wisdom  of  the  Brahmans  has  be- 
come proverbial.  Their  philosophy  is  praised  as  orig- 
inal and  profound,  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  first 
monistic  world-conception  was  thought  out  in  ancient 
India.  But  we  shall  see  later  on  what  the  real  share 
of  the  Brahmans  was  in  this  great  work. 

Even  in  the  earliest  periods  of  Indian  antiquity, 
as  revealed  to  us  in  the  songs  of  the  Rigveda,  we  meet 
priests,  who  ventured  to  lay  claim  to  the  ability  to 
make  sacrifices  in  a manner  peculiarly  agreeable  to 
the  gods,  and  who  attained  to  honor,  wealth,  and  in- 
fluence on  account  of  this  ability.  Back  into  this  old- 
est period  of  Indian  history  we  can  also  follow  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  Indian  caste  system  which  at  bottom 
is  a product  of  priestly  selfishness  and  weighs  upon 
the  Indian  people  like  a nightmare  even  to  the  pres- 
ent day.  However,  the  consolidation  of  the  priesthood 
into  a privileged  close  corporation,  as  well  as  the  real 
development  of  the  caste  system,  did  not  come  until 
the  time  represented  by  the  second  period  of  Brahman 
literature,  i.  e. , by  the  Yajurvedas,  or  Vedas  of  sacri- 


HINDU  MONISM. 


59 


ficial  formulae,  and  by  the  Brahmanas  and  the  Sutras, 
both  of  which  present  the  sacrificial  ritual,  the  former 
with,  the  latter  without,  theological  comment.  These 
works  contain  the  material  through  which  the  origin 
of  the  Indian  hierarchy  and  the  caste  system  is  clearly 
displayed  to  us.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  one  must  often 
be  able  to  read  between  the  lines.  The  highest  author- 
ity on  this  extensive  literature,  Professor  A.  Weber 
of  Berlin,  has  published  in  the  tenth  volume  of  the 
Indische  Studien,  edited  by  him,  under  the  title  “Col- 
lectanea fiber  die  Kastenverhaltnisse  in  den  Brahmana 
und  Sutra,”  an  excellent  essay  containing  his  material 
on  this  subject,  and  I have  used  it  in  the  following 
pages. 

With  truly  startling  frankness  the  Brahmans  put 
forth  their  claims  in  these  works.  In  numerous  pas- 
sages— to  begin  with  the  most  important  feature — 
they  proclaim  themselves  to  be  gods  walking  the  earth 
in  bodily  form.  “There  are  two  sorts  of  gods,”  they 
say;  “the  real  gods  and  the  learned  Brahmans  who 
repeat  the  Veda;”  “the  Brahman  represents  all  the 
divinities,”  indeed,  “he  is  the  god  of  gods,”  probably 
a unique  case  of  its  kind  where  clerical  presumption 
has  gone  to  the  point  of  making  such  claims.  After 
this  we  can  no  longer  feel  surprise  that  the  Brahmans, 
as  terrestrial  gods,  fancied  themselves  elevated  far 
above  royalty  and  nobility ; but  it  might  well  seem 
surprising  that  kings  and  warriors  yielded  to  the 
Brahmans  the  first  rank  in  the  State.  In  fact,  how- 


6o 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


ever,  they  did  it,  and  were  obliged  to  do  it  without 
any  reservation.  From  vague  legends  in  the  great 
Indian  epic  we  can  infer  that  there  were  bloody  strug- 
gles for  supremacy,  in  which  the  nobility  succumbed. 
Accordingly  these  epic  legends  are  for  us  an  impor- 
tant supplement  to  the  sources  with  which  we  are 
dealing. 

When  this  struggle,  which  the  Brahmans  probably 
let  the  people  proper  fight  out  for  themselves,  is  said 
to  originate  in  the  plundering  by  the  warriors  of  the 
treasures  which  the  priests  had  accumulated  from  the 
performance  of  sacrifices — the  details  are  to  be  found 
in  Lassen’s  Indische  Alterthumskunde,  second  edition, 
I.  71 1 — this  feature  of  the  legend  is  so  highly  prob- 
able that  we  are  scarcely  at  liberty  to  consider  it  an 
invention,  especially  when  we  take  into  consideration 
the  conditions  of  the  time,  on  which  we  are  about  to 
throw  more  light.  This,  then,  would  seem  to  be  the 
first  attempt  in  history  at  secularisation,  wherein  the 
rulers  of  the  time  fared  badly  enough. 

The  Brahmans  did  not  establish  hierarchical  con- 
centration or  ecclesiastical  ranks,  and  wished  to  share 
personally  in  the  government  only  in  so  far  as  the 
king  was  obliged  to  appoint  a Brahman  as  Purohit, 
or  household  priest,  who  as  such  held  also  the  office 
of  prime  minister.  Nevertheless  they  were  exceed- 
ingly skilful  in  keeping  the  nobility  and  the  whole 
people  in  their  power,  and  their  chief  means  to  this 
end  was  the  higher  knowledge  which  they  claimed, 


HINDU  MONISM. 


6i 

especially  the  conduct  of  sacrifices.  For  by  means  of 
sacrifices,  if  rightly  performed,  the  fulfilment  of  all 
wishes  might  in  those  times  be  extorted  from  the  gods. 
For  a scientifically  presented  sacrifice,  which  might 
require  weeks,  months,  and  even  years,  the  Brahman 
of  course  demanded  a fair  compensation.  Ten  thou- 
sand cattle  are  prescribed  as  fee  for  a certain  cere- 
mony, for  another  a hundred  thousand,  and  a later 
authority  on  ritual  even  demands  two  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  for  the  same  performance.  And  yet 
this  is  not  the  climax  of  priestly  greed,  which — to  use 
a fitting  expression  of  Professor  Weber’s — indulges  in 
veritable  orgies  in  these  texts.  When  one  has  worked 
his  way  through  the  endless  description  of  a cere- 
mony one  may  read  at  the  close  the  remark  that  the 
whole  sacrifice  is  of  no  avail  unless  the  fee  is  paid  to 
the  satisfaction  of  the  priests.  And  “lest  perchance 
— to  use  a modern  phrase — the  price  be  forced  down 
by  competition,  the  market  ‘beared,’  it  was  a rule 
that  no  one  might  accept  a fee  refused  by  another.” 
(Weber,  p.  54.)  The  sacrificial  ritual,  so  dry  and 
wearisome  for  us — the  only  literary  production  of 
these  intellectually  barren  centuries  preceding  the 
awakening  of  philosophical  speculation  — has  such 
great  historical  significance  for  the  very  reason  that 
it  shows  us  the  moral  depravity  of  the  Brahmans  in 
the  clearest  light.  To  what  extent  sexual  excesses 
were  customary  is  seen  from  the  fact  that  the  priest 
is  enjoined  as  an  especial  duty  not  to  commit  adultery 


62 


THE  TlilLOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


with  the  wife  of  another  during  a ceremony  regarded 
as  peculiarly  sacred.  But  any  one  not  able  to  observe 
such  continence  during  the  period  of  the  sacred  cere- 
mony absolves  himself  from  all  guilt  by  an  offering 
of  curdled  milk  to  Varuna  and  Mitra  ! 

An  instructive  supplement  to  this  indulgence  which 
the  Brahmans  showed  for  their  own  weaknesses,  is 
furnished  by  the  numerous  passages  in  the  rituals  in 
which  the  officiating  priest  is  told  with  perfect  frank- 
ness how  to  proceed  in  the  sacrifice  when  he  wishes 
to  do  this  or  that  injury  to  the  man  who  appoints  and 
richly  pays  him  : in  what  fashion  he  is  to  deviate  from 
the  prescribed  method  when  he  wishes  to  deprive  his 
employer  of  sight,  hearing,  children,  property,  or 
power.  The  mutual  confidence  which  existed  under 
these  circumstances  is  accordingly  well  illustrated  by 
a ceremony,  the  introduction  of  which  before  a sacri- 
fice came  to  be  regarded  as  necessary,  consisting  in  a 
solemn  oath  by  which  the  priest  and  the  client  bound 
themselves  to  do  each  other  no  harm  knowingly  dur- 
ing the  continuance  of  the  sacred  office.  After  such 
specimens  as  these  we  shall  no  longer  be  surprised  by 
the  strange  ethical  conceptions  which  the  Brahmans 
of  this  period  have  put  on  record.  “Murder  of  any 
one  but  a Brahman  is  not  really  murder,”  and  “a 
judge  must  always  decide  in  favor  of  a Brahman  as 
against  his  adversary  who  is  not  a Brahman  ” ; such 
and  similar  things  are  uttered  in  the  ritual  texts  with 
delightful  coolness. 


HINDU  MONISM. 


63 


It  is  evident  that  the  caste  system,  developed  at 
the  same  time  as  the  ritual,  served  chiefly  to  strengthen 
the  power  and  influence  of  the  priests  ; for  when  in 
the  community  the  various  classes  are  sharply  distin- 
guished from  one  another  the  priest  can  manage  most 
easily  to  play  off  one  factor  against  another  to  suit  his 
own  purpose.  Next  the  Brahmans  stood,  as  second 
caste,  the  Kshatriyas  (literally  the  rulers,  i.  e.,  king, 
nobility,  warriors),  as  third  the  Vai^yas  (the  people 
proper  : farmers,  merchants,  and  artisans),  while  the 
non-Aryan,  subjected  aborigines,  known  as  ^udras, 
or  servants,  without  civil  or  religious  rights,  had  to 
fulfil  the  divine  purpose  by  serving  the  Aryan  castes, 
especially  the  Brahmans.  “The  ^udra  is  the  servant 
of  the  others,  and  may  be  cast  out  and  killed  at  pleas- 
ure ” ; that  is  the  humane  view  applied  by  the  Brah- 
mans to  the  native  population. 

The  priestly  caste  might  well  have  been  content 
with  such  a condition  of  affairs  as  we  find  in  the  early 
Indian  ritual  texts.  But  the  Brahmans  were  not  ; 
they  continued  to  work  steadily  to  secure  new  advan- 
tages for  themselves,  and  to  push  the  rigid  caste  dis- 
tinctions to  the  most  dreadful  consequences.  The  re- 
sult lies  before  us  in  condensed  form  in  the  famous 
law-book  of  Manu,  the  exact  date  of  which  is  not  yet 
ascertained,  but  which  must  have  assumed  its  present 
form  about  the  beginning  of  our  era.  The  conditions 
which  I propose  to  sketch  briefly  in  the  following 
pages  were,  therefore,  developed  in  the  last  centuries 


64 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


before  Christ.  And  even  if  various  provisions  of  this 
law-book  remained  mere  Brahman  theory  without 
being  put  into  practice,  enough  would  be  left  to  show 
the  social  conditions  of  that  period  in  a very  cheer- 
less light  ; and  indeed  it  is  not  likely  that  they  fell 
much  short  of  the  priestly  ideal.  Koppen,  in  the  in- 
troductory chapter  of  his  work  on  Buddhism,  has  esti- 
mated the  social  relations  shown  us  in  the  laws  of 
Manu  severely  but  justly,  saving  a single  error  due  to 
the  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  age  of  the  law-book 
prevalent  at  that  time  : he  places  the  development  of 
which  we  are  speaking  in  the  time  before  Buddha, 
whereas  in  fact  it  took  place  after  Buddha.  L.  von 
Schroder,  also,  in  his  work  Indiens  Literatur  und  Cul- 
tur  (Leipsic,  H.  Hassel,  1887)  gives  in  the  twenty- 
ninth  lecture  a clever  arrangement  of  the  material  on 
this  subject. 

That  the  claim  of  the  Brahmans  to  divine  rank 
had  not  grown  less  with  the  lapse  of  centuries  is 
shown  by  various  passages  of  the  law-book:  “The 
Brahmans  are  to  be  revered  at  all  times;  for  they  are 
the  highest  divinity,”  indeed,  “by  his  very  descent 
the  Brahman  is  a divinity  to  the  gods  themselves.” 

Of  greater  practical  value  for  the  Brahmans  than 
this  recognition  as  divinities  must  have  been  the  nu- 
merous privileges  which  they  enjoyed  before  the  law. 
They  were  exempt  from  taxation  under  all  circum- 
stances, “even  if  the  king  should  starve  the  while.” 
Even  for  the  worst  crimes  they  could  not  be  executed. 


HINDU  MONISM. 


65 


chastised,  or  punished  by  confiscation  of  property, 
while  the  criminal  code  was  very  severe  toward  the 
other  castes  and  especially  the  (^udras.  Penalties 
were  increased  in  proportion  as  the  caste  of  the  offen- 
der was  lower,  and  similarly  fines  for  injuries  were 
higher  as  the  caste  of  the  one  offended  rose.  The 
money-lender  might  take  from  a Brahman  two  per 
cent,  a month,  from  a Kshatriya  three,  from  a Vaifya 
four,  and  from  a ^udra  five.  And  so  in  all  provisions 
of  the  code  it  is  evident  how  well  the  Brahmans  took 
care  of  their  own  interests.  According  to  this  law- 
book the  ^udra  had  no  rights  whatever  in  his  relations 
with  them.  “The  Brahman  may  regard  him  wholly 
as  his  slave,  and  is  therefore  entitled  to  take  away  his 
property ; for  the  possessions  of  the  slave  belong  to 
his  master. — TheQudra  is  not  to  acquire  wealth,  even 
when  he  is  in  a position  to  do  so,  for  this  is  offensive 
to  the  Brahman!”  (Schroder,  p.  421.) 

But  all  these  things  are  comparatively  innocent 
beside  the  regulations  whereby  the  Brahmans  con- 
demned to  the  most  wretched  estate  innumerable  hu- 
man beings  whose  only  fault  was  that  their  descent 
did  not  satisfy  the  conditions  of  the  priestly  scheme. 
In  former  times  members  of  the  three  Aryan  castes, 
when  they  had  taken  as  first  wife  a girl  of  their  own 
caste,  had  been  permitted  to  take  additional  wives 
from  the  lower  castes,  and  the  children  of  the  latter 
incurred  no  reproach  from  this  fact : the  son  of  a 
Brahman  and  a Vai9ya  or  even  a ^udra  woman  was 


66 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


under  these  conditions  a Brahman.  But  by  the  Laws 
of  Manu  this  was  no  longer  the  case.  The  children  of 
parents  of  unequal  castes  take  the  rank  of  neither 
father  nor  mother,  but  constitute  a mixed  caste,  and 
the  nature  of  their  occupation  is  quite  definitely  pre- 
scribed in  the  Brahman  law.  As  a result  of  this  theory 
there  arose  a great  number  of  mixed  castes,  all  more 
or  less  despised.  Moreover,  the  social  position  of 
many  of  these  mixed  castes  was  made  still  worse  by 
an  absurd  doctrine  which  reduced  the  human  race  in 
India  to  the  level  of  grass  and  herbs.  Good  seed  in 
poor  soil  yields,  to  be  sure,  less  increase  than  in  good 
soil,  but  still  the  product  is  endurable.  But  the  seed 
of  weeds  in  good  soil  results  in  the  strengthening  and 
increase  of  the  weeds.  According  to  Brahman  views, 
therefore,  a man  begets  by  a woman  of  a higher  caste 
children  of  less  value  and  rank  than  himself.  But  the 
lowest  and  most  despicable  human  creature  on  earth 
is  the  child  of  a Qudra  and  a Brahman  woman.  While 
the  lot  of  the  ^udra  was  a hard  one,  the  misery  of  the 
Chandala,  the  unhappy  creature  born  of  such  a union, 
defies  all  description. 

“He  is  to  dwell  far  from  the  abodes  of  other  men, 
bearing  marks  whereby  every  one  may  recognise  and 
avoid  him  ; for  contact  with  him  is  pollution.  Only 
by  day  may  he  enter  villages,  so  that  he  may  be 
avoided.  He  is  to  possess  only  lowly  animals,  such 
as  dogs  and  donkeys,  eat  only  from  broken  dishes, 
dress  only  in  garments  taken  from  the  dead,  and  so 


HINDU  MONISM. 


67 


on.  They  are  to  do  the  work  of  executioners,  every 
one  is  to  shun  them.  The  proud  Brahman  condemns 
these  wretches  to  contempt,  misery,  and  woe  in  the 
extreme  degree.”  (Schroder,  pp.  423,  424.) 

But  of  course  this  Brahman  system  so  fatal  to  all 
human  dignity,  does  not  end  with  the  Chandala ; for 
his  offspring,  even  if  he  has  only  a (^udra  wife,  must 
in  turn  rank  lower  than  himself.  And  so,  in  fact,  there 
arose  a great  number  of  despised  mixed  castes — or 
rather  casteless  strata^ — each  ever  more  despised  than 
the  other,  and  in  turn  mutually  despising  one  another. 
Most  varieties  of  these  outcasts  bear  the  names  of  ab- 
original Indian  tribes,  that  is  to  say,  are  thrown  into 
the  same  category  with  particularly  despised  races, 
and  in  the  same  way  are  deprived  of  all  chance  for  an 
existence  befitting  a human  being.  Even  though  some 
things  that  have  been  said  about  the  origin  of  the 
mixed  castes  may  be  only  the  outcome  of  the  Brah- 
man passion  for  system,  nevertheless  the  actual  exist- 
ence in  India  of  such  classes,  condemned  by  the  priest- 
hood to  a mere  brute  existence,  is  sufficiently  con- 
firmed by  European  observers. 

The  fact  that  in  modern  times  the  subdivisioning 
of  the  people  has  increased  rapidly,  and  is  still  doing 
so  to-day,  so  that  every  separate  calling  constitutes  a 
distinct  caste  having  neither  social  connexion  with 
the  others  nor  patriotic  interest  in  them, — this  fact  is 
due  at  least  indirectly  to  the  influence  of  the  Brah- 
mans ; for  this  melancholy  condition  is  only  a sequence 


68 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


and  further  development  of  the  social  system  estab- 
lished by  the  Brahmans. 

I cannot  regard  it  as  my  task  here  to  give  a com- 
plete list  of  the  Brahmans’  sins  ; I intended  only  to 
cite  enough  to  leave  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  the 
reader  of  these  pages  regarding  the  way  in  which  the 
Indian  priests  cared  for  the  happiness  of  their  people. 
Now  there  will  be  found  in  general  a disposition  to  con- 
demn severely  enough  the  selfishness  and  merciless- 
ness of  the  Brahmans,  but  at  the  same  time  to  recog- 
nise with  admiration  their  intellectual  achievements ; 
much  will  be  forgiven  them  for  the  sake  of  the  pro- 
found thoughts  with  which  they  have  enriched  their 
own  country  and  the  world.  It  is,  indeed,  the  “Wis- 
dom of  the  Brahmans  ” that  has  given  to  the  word 
India  a musical  sound  which  is  perpetuated  even  to- 
day in  the  hearts  of  all  to  whom  the  endeavor  after 
the  highest  truth  seems  to  be  the  most  important  phe- 
nomenon in  the  development  of  mankind.  But  what 
will  be  said  if  it  can  be  proven  that  the  Brahman’s 
profoundest  wisdom,  the  doctrine  of  the  All-One, 
which  has  exercised  an  unmistakable  influence  on  the 
intellectual  life  of  even  our  time,  did  not  have  its 
origin  in  the  circle  of  Brahmans  at  all?  Will  not  the 
scale-pan  in  which  the  Indian  priesthood  are  being 
weighed  rise  considerably? 

Before  entering  more  in  detail  upon  this  very  im- 
portant question  in  the  history  of  civilisation,  I must 


HINDU  MONISM.  69 

briefly  characterise  the  period  in  which  we  meet  the 
thoughts  of  which  I am  speaking. 

For  centuries  the  Brahmans  were  indefatigable  in 
devising  sacrifice  after  sacrifice,  in  heaping  one  upon 
another  symbolical  interpretations  which  bear  only 
too  plainly  the  stamp  of  priestly  sophistry.  All  at  once 
loftier  thoughts  appear : traditional  knowledge  and 
the  performance  of  sacrifices  are,  to  be  sure,  not  yet 
rejected,  but  the  mind  no  longer  feels  satisfied  by  the 
mysteries  of  the  “sacrificial  compound,”  and  strives 
toward  higher  and  nobler  goals.  All  minds  are  domi- 
nated by  a passionate  desire  to  understand  the  riddle 
of  the  world  and  to  comprehend  the  relation  of  the  in- 
dividual to  the  universe.  The  time  of  deepest  intellec- 
tual decline  is  followed  by  a keenly  intellectual  period 
quite  filled  with  questionings  after  the  Eternal-One 
that  lies  back  of  fluctuant  phenomena  and  is  found 
again  in  the  depths  of  the  individual  being.  It  is  the 
age  of  the  Upanishads,  those  famous  works  which  im- 
mediately on  their  appearance  in  Europe  filled  the 
greatest  thinkers  of  the  Occident  with  admiration  and 
enthusiasm.  I am  speaking  now  only  of  the  elder 
Upanishads,  which  originated  approximately  in  the 
period  from  the  eighth  to  the  sixth  century  B.  C. , and 
not  of  the  great  mass  of  writings  (more  than  two  hun- 
dred in  number)  bearing  the  same  name  but  not  of 
equal  worth,  the  origin  of  which  reaches  far  into  the 
Christian  era.  In  the  elder  Upanishads  the  struggle 
for  absolute  knowledge  has  found  an  expression  unique 


70 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


in  its  kind  ; and  accordingly  there  is  cause  for  rejoi- 
cing in  the  fact  that  we  now  have  the  most  important 
of  them  in  excellent,  faithful  translations  from  the  pen 
of  the  famous  Nestor  of  Indologians,  Otto  Bohtlingk. 
There  are  indeed  in  these  Upanishads  many  specula- 
tions over  which  we  shake  our  heads  in  wonder,  but 
the  meditations  keep  recurring  to  the  Brahman^ — the 
world-soul,  the  Absolute  or  “Ding  an  sich,”  or  how- 
ever the  word  so  full  of  content  may  be  translated,— 
and  culminate  in  the  thought  that  the  Atman,  the  in- 
ner self  of  man,  is  nothing  less  than  the  eternal  and 
infinite  Brahman.  The  language  of  the  Upanishads 
is  enlivened  in  such  passages  by  a wonderful  energy 
which  testifies  to  the  elevated  mood  in  which  the 
thinkers  of  that  time  labored  to  proclaim  the  great 
mystery.  New  phrases,  figures,  and  similes  are  con- 
stantly sought  in  order  to  put  into  words  what  words 
are  incapable  of  describing.  For  instance,  the  ven- 
erable Brihadaranyaka  Upanishad  has  this  : “ He  who 
dwells  in  the  earth,  but  is  distinct  from  the  earth,  of 
whom  the  earth  knows  not,  whose  body  the  earth  is, 
who  is  the  moving  power  in  the  earth, — this  is  your 
Self,  the  inner,  immortal  ruler.”  In  the  same  words 
the  same  declaration  is  made  regarding  water,  fire, 
ether,  wind,  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  of  the  regions  of 
earth,  of  thunder  and  lightning,  of  all  the  worlds,  of 

IThe  reader  will  need  to  be  alert  on  the  distinction  between  Brahman 
(neuter)  as  here  defined,  and  Brahman  (masculine)  meaning  the  priest  or 
member  of  the  caste.  For  the  present  meaning  the  spelling  “ Brahm  ” is 
sometimes  found  in  English  writings. — TV. 


HINDU  MONISM. 


71 


all  creatures  and  of  many  other  things,  and  then  the 
chapter  closes  with  the  words  : ‘ ‘ He  who  sees  with- 
out being  seen,  hears  without  being  heard,  thinks 
without  being  thought,  knows  without  being  known, 
besides  whom  there  is  nothing  else  that  sees,  hears, 
thinks,  or  knows,— this  is  your  own  Self,  the  inner  im- 
mortal ruler.  All  else  is  full  of  sorrow.”  And  just 
after  this  there  appears  in  the  same  famous  Upani- 
shad  a knowledge-craving  woman,  by  name  Gargi 
Vachaknavi,  and  asks  the  wise  Yajnavalkya  (I  quote 
Schroder’s  translation  with  some  omissions)  : "That 
which  is  above  the  sky,  under  the  earth,  and  between 
sky  and  earth,  which  was,  is,  and  is  to  be, — in  what 
and  with  what  is  this  interwoven  (i.  e.,  in  what  does  it 
live  and  move)?”  Yajnavalk3'a  answers  evasively,  or  to 
test  the  intellectual  powers  of  Gargi  : “In  the  ether.” 
But  Gargi  knows  that  this  does  not  reach  final  knowl- 
edge, and  asks:  “But  in  and  with  what  is  the  ether 
interwoven?”  And  Yajnavalkj'a  said:  “That,  O 

Gargi,  the  Brahmans  call  the  Imperishable,  which  is 
neither  large  nor  small,  neither  short  nor  long,  with- 
out connexion,  without  contact,  without  eye,  without 
ear,  without  voice,  without  breath,  without  counte- 
nance, and  without  name.  In  the  power  of  this  Im- 
perishable are  maintained  heaven  and  earth,  sun  and 
moon,  day  and  night ; subject  to  the  power  of  this 
Imperishable,  O Gargi,  some  rivers  flow  to  the  east, 
some  to  the  west,  and  in  such  directions  as  may  be. 


72 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


He  who  leaves  this  world,  O Gargi,  without  having 
come  to  know  this  Imperishable  is  to  be  pitied.” 

In  the  Chandogya  Upanishad,  a work  of  no  less 
importance,  the  same  philosophy  is  taught  in  various 
parables  by  a man  named  Uddalaka  to  his  son  ^veta- 
ketu.  We  find  the  two  standing  before  a Nyagrodha 
tree,  that  species  of  fig-tree  which  keeps  constantly 
sending  roots  to  the  earth  from  its  branches,  thus  de- 
veloping new  trunks  until  in  the  course  of  time  the 
one  tree  resembles  a green  hall  with  many  pillars, 
capable  of  affording  shade  to  hundreds,  and  even  thou- 
sands of  men.  And  before  such  a tree,  the  most  beau- 
tiful symbol  of  the  ever  self-rejuvenating  power  of 
nature,  takes  place  the  following  conversation  between 
father  and  son  (best  rendered  by  Deussen,  System  des 
Veddnta,  p.  286)  : 

“Fetch  me  a fruit  of  the  Nyagrodha  tree,  yon- 
der.”— “Here  it  is,  venerable  one.” — “Split  it.” — 
“It  is  split,  venerable  one.” — “What  do  you  see 
therein?” — “ I see,  O venerable  one,  very  small  seeds.” 
— “Split  one  of  them.” — “It  is  split,  venerable  one.” 
— “What  do  you  see  therein?” — “Nothing  at  all,  O 
venerable  one.”  Then  said  the  father  : “The  minute 
thing  that  you  cannot  see,  O dear  one,  from  this  mi- 
nute thing  sprang  this  great  Nyagrodha  tree.  Believe 
me,  O dear  one,  of  the  same  nature  as  this  minute 
thing  is  the  universe,  it  is  the  (only  true)  reality,  it  is 
the  world-soul,  it  is  yourself,  O Qvetaketu.” 

This  eternal  foundation  of  all  being,  which  every 


HINDU  MONISM. 


73 


one  has  within  him,  the  absolute  Being,  which  at  the 
same  time  is  identical  with  abstract  thought,  was  rec- 
ognised, therefore,  as  the  only  reality.  The  whole 
fluctuant  multiformity  of  the  world  of  phenomena  is, 
on  the  other  hand,  a deception,  an  illusion  (Maya),  a 
creation  of  ignorance.  We  see,  it  is  the  most  con- 
sistent Monism  that  is  here  taught  in  the  Upanishads. 
To  have  been  the  first  in  the  world  to  proclaim  this  is 
a service  that  can  scarcely  be  overestimated.  But 
whether  the  merit  of  this  belongs  to  the  Brahmans, 
or  is  ascribed  to  them  incorrectly,  that  is  the  question 
which  is  to  be  answered  in  the  following  paragraphs. 

To  begin  with,  be  it  observed  that  the  closer  circle 
of  specialists  : Weber,  Max  Muller,  Deussen,  Regnaud, 
Bhandarkar  and  others  have  for  some  time  been  point- 
ing out  evidence  which  suggests  that  another  portion 
of  the  Indian  people  were  the  dominant  factor  in  the 
development  of  the  monistic  doctrine  in  the  elder 
Upanishads.  But  so  far  as  I know  the  subject  has 
not  been  presented  to  the  general  educated  public  in 
a popularly  intelligible  form. 

In  the  second  book  of  the  Brihadaranyaka  Upani- 
shad,  from  which  I have  already  quoted  two  speci- 
mens, occurs  the  following  narrative,  of  which  another 
and  only  slightly  different  version  is  preserved  in  the 
fourth  book  of  the  Kaushitaki  Upanishad  : 

The  proud  and  learned  Brahman  Balaki  Gargya 
comes  on  his  wanderings  to  Ajata9atru,  prince  of  Be- 
nares, and  says  to  him  : “I  will  declare  to  you  the 


74  the  philosophy  of  ancient  INDIA. 

Brahman^”  The  king  is  rejoiced,  and  promises  to 
reward  him  for  it  handsomely,  with  a thousand  cows. 
And  now  the  Brahman  begins  to  deliver  his  wisdom  : 
“I  worship  the  spirit  (i.  e.,  the  power)  in  the  sun  as 
the  Brahman  but  he  is  interrupted  by  the  king  who 
tells  him  he  already  knows  that  and  needs  not  to  be 
told  of  it.  Then  the  Brahman  speaks  of  the  spirit  in 
the  moon,  in  the  lightning,  in  the  ether,  in  the  wind, 
in  fire,  water,  and  the  regions  of  earth ; but  the  king 
rejects  all  this  as  being  already  familiar  to  him.  And 
whatever  else  Gargya  presents,  it  is  nothing  new  to 
the  king.  Then,  the  story  goes,  the  Brahman  was 
dumb.  But  Ajata9atru  asked  him;  “Is  that  all?” 
and  Gargya  answered  : “Yes,  that  is  all.”  Then  the 
king  exclaimed:  “These  trifles  do  not  amount  to 
knowing  the  Brahman,”  whereupon  Gargya  declares 
that  he  will  become  a disciple  of  the  king  and  learn  of 
him.  And  Ajata9atru  replies  : “ It  is  contrary  to  the 
natural  order  that  a Brahman  receive  instruction  from 
a warrior  and  expect  the  latter  to  declare  the  Brah- 
man to  him  ; however,  I will  teach  you  to  know  it.” 
Then  the  king  took  the  Brahman  by  the  hand  and  led 
him  to  where  a man  lay  asleep.  The  king  spoke  to 
him ; but  he  did  not  arise.  But  when  Ajata9atru 
touched  him  with  his  hand,  he  rose.  Now  the  king 
asked  the  Brahman;  “Where  was  this  man’s  mind, 
consisting  as  it  does  of  knowledge,  while  he  was  asleep, 
and  whence  has  it  just  returned  ? ” But  Gargya  could 


1 See  note,  p.  70. 


HINDU  MONISM. 


75 


make  no  reply.  Then  Ajatafatru  explained  to  him 
how  the  mind,  or  the  Self,  of  the  sleeper  roves  in  the 
dream,  how  all  places  belong  to  him,  and  he  can  be 
at  will  now  a great  king,  now  a great  Brahman  ; but 
how  there  is  then  a still  higher  and  happier  state, 
namely,  when  one  has  fallen  into  a dreamless  sleep, 
and  no  longer  has  any  consciousness  of  anything.  This 
is  the  condition  in  which  the  Self  of  man,  unaffected 
by  the  world  of  phenomena,  rests  in  its  true  nature, 
in  which  there  is  no  difference  between  the  Atman 
and  the  Brahman. 

More  significant  perhaps  than  this  story  is  another 
which  is  reported  both  in  the  fifth  book  of  the  Chan- 
dogya  Upanishad,  and  in  the  sixth  book  of  the  Briha- 
daranyaka  Upanishad : 

The  young  Brahman  Qvetaketu  comes  to  an  as- 
sembly, and  is  there  asked  by  the  Prince  Pravahana 
Jaivali:  “Young  man,  has  your  father  instructed  you?” 
— “Yes,  sir.” — “Do  you  know,  then,”  the  prince  goes 
on,  “whither  creatures  go  from  here  when  they  die? 
Do  you  know  how  they  return  hither?”  And  three 
other  questions  he  addresses  to  the  Brahman  youth, 
who  is  obliged  to  confess  in  confusion  that  he  knows 
nothing  of  all  these  things.  And  so  (^vetaketu  returns 
dejected  to  his  father,  who  here  appears  under  the 
name  of  Gautama,  and  reproaches  him:  “Although 
you  have  not  instructed  me,  you  told  me  that  you  had. 
A simple  king  has  addressed  five  questions  to  me,  and 
I was  unable  to  answer  a single  one.”  Thereupon  the 


?6 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


father  answers  : “ My  son,  you  know  me  well  enough 
to  know  that  I have  told  you  all  I know.  Come,  let  us 
both  go  and  become  disciples  of  the  prince.”  The 
prince  receives  the  old  Brahman  with  all  honor,  and 
permits  him  to  ask  for  a gift.  But  Gautama  refuses 
all  earthly  possessions,  gold,  cows,  and  horses,  female 
slaves  and  robes,  and  desires  of  the  prince  the  answers 
to  the  questions  which  had  been  addressed  to  his  son, 
saying:  “I  come  as  a disciple  of  the  revered  one.” 
Pravahana  is  at  first  disposed  to  put  him  off,  but  finally 
consents  to  fulfil  the  wish  of  the  Brahman,  and  says 
that  no  one  in  the  world  outside  of  the  warrior  caste  can 
explain  these  matters.  And  the  following  words  are 
also  significant : “/  would  that  neither  you,  O Gautama, 
nor  any  of  your  ancestors  had  part  in  that  lin  against  us 
because  of  which  this  knowledge  has  until  now  never  set 
up  its  residence  among  Brahmans.  To  you  I will  reveal 
it;  for  who  could  refuse  one  who  makes  such  an  ap- 
peal?” And  thereupon  the  king  imparts  to  the  Brah- 
man all  he  knows. 

The  same  story  in  all  essentials  is  found  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Kaushitaki  Upanishad,  save  that  the 
prince  has  a different  name,  to  wit,  Chitra. 

Passing  over  evidence  of  less  importance,  I will 
only  give  in  condensed  form  the  contents  of  the  elev- 
enth and  following  chapters  from  the  fifth  book  of  the 
Chandogya  Upanishad,  where  again  a man  of  the 
warrior  caste,  A9vapati,  prince  of  the  Kekaya,  appears 
in  possession  of  the  highest  wisdom.  The  book  tells 


HINDU  MONISM. 


77 


US  that  a number  of  very  learned  Brahmans,  referred 
to  by  name,  are  meditating  on  the  question  : “What 
is  our  Self?  What  is  the  Brahman?”  and  they  de- 
cided to  go  to  Uddalaka  Aruni,  of  whom  they  knew 
that  he  was  at  the  time  investigating  the  “omnipresent 
Self.”  But  he  said  to  himself  : “They  will  question 
me,  and  I shall  not  be  able  to  answer  all  their  ques- 
tions,” and  therefore  he  invited  his  visitors  to  go  with 
him  to  A9vapati,  prince  of  the  Kekayas,  to  request  in- 
struction from  him.  The  king  receives  the  visitors 
with  honor,  invites  them  to  tarry  with  him,  and  prom- 
ises them  presents  equal  in  amount  to  the  sacrificial 
fees.  But  they  said : “A  man  must  communicate  what 
he  is  occupied  with.  You  are  at  present  investigating 
the  Omnipresent  Self.  Reveal  it  to  us.”  The  king 
replied:  “I  will  answer  you  to-morrow  morning.” 
And  the  next  forenoon,  without  having  accepted  them 
as  disciples,  i.  e.,  without  going  through  the  formal- 
ities customary  on  such  an  occasion,  he  asked  them 
one  after  the  other:  “As  what  do  you  revere  the 
Self?”  And  the  Brahmans  made  answer  one  after  an- 
other : “As  the  sky,  as  the  sun,  as  the  ether,  as  water, 
as  earth.”  Then  the  king  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  they  are  all  in  error,  because  they  regard  the 
Omnipresent  Self  as  a single  thing,  existing  by  itself ; 
whereas  in  truth  it  is  the  Infinite, — at  once  the  infin- 
itely small  and  the  infinitely  great. 

The  significance  of  these  stories  Is  evident. 
Whether  real  occurrences  underlie  the  separate  ac- 


78 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


counts,  or  whether  they  are  to  be  regarded  as  legen- 
dary deposits  of  a conviction  widely  current  at  the 
time,  cannot  be  determined ; moreover,  the  question 
of  the  historical  basis  of  these  stories  is  of  no  impor- 
tance for  us.  The  fact  that  such  tales  are  contained 
in  genuinely  Brahman  writings  which  are  regarded  in 
India,  and  rightly  so,  as  mainstays  of  Brahmanism, 
speaks  to  us  in  a language  not  to  be  misunderstood. 
It  shows  that  the  authors  of  the  elder  Upanishads  did 
not  try,  or  did  not  dare,  to  veil  the  situation  that  was 
patent  in  their  time,  and  claim  the  monistic  doctrine 
of  the  Brahman-Atman  as  an  inheritance  of  their 
caste ; perhaps,  even,  that  they  did  not  consider  the 
establishment  of  this  doctrine  as  a service  of  such  far- 
reaching  importance  as  to  care  to  claim  it  for  the 
Brahman  caste.  In  later  times,  it  is  true,  this  philos- 
ophy became  in  the  fullest  sense  the  property  of  the 
Brahmans,  and  has  been  cultivated  by  them  for  twenty- 
five  centuries,  down  to  the  present  day,  so  that  it  is 
still  regarded  as  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  Brahman- 
ism. But  this  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  it  took  its 
rise  in  the  ranks  of  the  warrior  caste.  To  this  caste 
belongs  the  credit  of  clearly  recognising  the  hollow- 
ness of  the  sacrificial  system  and  the  absurdity  of  its 
symbolism,  and,  by  opening  a new  world  of  ideas,  of 
effecting  the  great  revolution  in  the  intellectual  life  of 
ancient  India.  When  we  see  how  the  Brahmans,  even 
after  they  had  adopted  the  new  doctrine,  continued 
to  cultivate  the  whole  ceremonial  system — the  great 


HINDU  MONISM. 


79 


milch  cow  of  the  priestly  caste — and  how  they  com- 
bined in  unnatural  fashion  these  two  heterogeneous 
elements  by  representing  a stage  of  works  (ceremoni- 
als) as  the  indispensable  prerequisite  to  the  stage  of 
knowledge,  we  are  warranted  in  the  assumption  that 
these  things  developed  in  ancient  India  just  as  they 
did  in  the  rest  of  the  world.  Intellectual  enlighten- 
ment is  opposed  by  its  natural  enemy,  the  priesthood, 
until  it  has  become  too  strong  in  the  people  to  be  suc- 
cessfully opposed  any  longer.  Then  the  priest,  too, 
professes  the  new  ideas,  and  tries  to  harmonise  them 
as  far  as  possible  with  his  hollow  shams. 

But  the  ideas  thus  far  treated,  which  are  the  ones 
most  eminently  characteristic  of  Indian  wisdom,  are 
not  the  only  contribution  by  the  Indian  warrior  caste 
to  the  thought  and  religion  of  their  race.  The  best 
known  of  all  Indians,  the  noble  Gautama  of  Kapila- 
vastu,  who  founded  Buddhism  about  five  hundred 
years  before  Christ,  was  also  a Kshatriya,— according 
to  later  tradition,  and  formerly  the  only  one  known  to 
us,  the  son  of  a king,  but  according  to  older  sources 
now  revealed  to  us  chiefly  through  Oldenberg’s  meri- 
torious labors,  the  son  of  a wealthy  landholder.  Bud- 
dha, “the  Enlightened” — let  us  speak  of  him  by  this 
honorable  title  familiar  to  all  the  world — opposed 
most  energetically  the  whole  sacrificial  system  and  all 
the  prejudices  of  Brahmanism.  The  ceremonies  and 
the  priestly  lore  were  in  his  eyes  a cheat  and  a fraud, 
and  the  caste  system  of  no  force  ; for  he  taught  that 


8o 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


the  highest  good  was  just  as  accessible  to  the  hum- 
blest as  to  the  Brahman  and  the  king  ; that  every  one 
without  distinction  of  birth  could  attain  to  saving 
knowledge  by  renunciation  of  the  world,  by  self-con- 
quest, and  by  sacrifice  of  self  for  the  good  of  one’s 
fellow-creatures. 

Oldenberg’s  excellent  book  on  Buddha,  which  rep- 
resents the  standpoint  of  the  latest  researches,  makes 
it  unnecessary  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
greatest  of  all  Indians  ; only  in  one  point,  which  is 
especially  important  for  the  connexion  of  our  obser- 
vations, I wish  to  present  briefly  my  deviation  from 
Oldenberg’s  views.  According  to  the  oldest  sources, 
Buddha’s  method  of  presentation  seems  for  the  most 
part  not  adapted  to  the  capacity  of  the  masses  ; it  is 
not  popular,  but  abstract  and  philosophical.  In  this 
the  inner  probability  seems  to  me  to  be  too  much 
against  the  style  of  these  sources,  which — be  it  not 
forgotten — are  still  some  centuries  later  than  Buddha 
himself.  Oldenberg  himself  suggests  a doubt  whether 
the  dry,  tiresome  ecclesiastical  style  of  Buddha’s 
alleged  speeches  is  really  a faithful  reflexion  of  the 
word  as  first  spoken.  He  says,  p.  i8i  : “Any  one  who 
reads  the  teachings  which  the  sacred  texts  put  into 
his  mouth  will  hardly  repress  the  question  whether  the 
form  in  which  Buddha  himself  preached  his  doctrine 
can  have  had  any  resemblance  to  these  strangely  rigid 
shapes  of  abstract  and  often  abstruse  categories  with 
their  interminable  repetitions.  In  the  picture  of  those 


HINDU  MONISM. 


8l 


elder  ages  we  dislike  to  think  otherwise  than  that  a 
strong  and  youthfully  alert  spirit  animated  the  inter- 
course of  master  and  disciples,  and  would  therefore 
gladly  exclude  from  the  picture  everything  that  would 
introduce  the  least  touch  of  the  forced  and  artificial.” 
But  then,  after  considering  the  conditions  of  the  time, 
he  concludes  that  it  is  plausible  (p.  184)  “that  the 
solemnly  serious  style  of  Buddha  was  more  closely 
related  to  the  type  of  the  speeches  preserved  by  tradi- 
tion, than  to  that  which  our  sense  of  the  natural  and 
probable  might  tempt  us  to  substitute  for  it?”  I have 
not  been  able  to  convince  myself  of  this.  Such  a tre- 
mendous result  as  followed  Buddha’s  career  was  to  be 
attained  even  in  India  only  by  stirring  eloquence  and 
by  a popular  presentation  making  free  use  of  figures 
and  parables.  If  Buddha  had  addressed  himself  to 
the  understanding  alone  of  those  who  stood  closest  to 
him,  consisting  of  aristocratic  elements,  if  he  had  not 
spoken  to  the  hearts  of  the  people  and  carried  away 
the  masses,  his  monastic  order  would  scarcely  have 
met  any  other  fate  than  the  other  monkish  communi- 
ties of  his  time,  which  have  vanished  and  left  no  trace, 
— all  save  one.  For  since  the  doctrines  of  all  these 
orders,  or  of  their  founders,  were  essentially  alike, 
and  since  it  will  scarcely  be  attributed  to  accident 
that  the  teaching  of  Buddha  alone  developed  into  a 
world-religion  that  even  to-day  is  the  most  widespread 
of  all  religions  on  earth,  the  only  explanation  of  this 
is  found  in  the  assumption  that  Buddha’s  manner  of 


82 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


teaching  is  responsible  for  the  result,  and  that  we 
have  to  seek  in  it  the  germ  of  the  later  expansion  of 
Buddhism.  Only  recent  investigations  have  refuted 
the  once  prevalent  view  that  Buddha’s  appearance 
and  career  in  India  was  a phenomenon  unique  in  its 
kind,  and  revolutionised  the  contemporary  social  con- 
ditions of  the  country.  In  fact,  Buddha  was  only  a 
primus  inter  pares,  one  of  the  numerous  ascetics  who 
while  seeking  and  teaching  the  means  of  release  from 
the  painful  circuit  of  the  transmigration  of  the  soul, 
wandered  about  Northern  India  and  gathered  follow- 
ers about  them. 

Only  one  other  communify  founded  In  that  time 
has,  as  above  intimated,  endured  to  the  present  day, 
that  of  the  Jains,  which  has  numerous  members, 
especially  in  Western  India.  The  doctrines  of  the 
Jains  are  so  extraordinarily  like  those  of  the  Bud- 
dhists that  the  Jains  were  until  recently  regarded  as 
a Buddhist  sect ; but  in  fact  we  have  to  do  with  an- 
other religion,  founded  by  a predecessor  of  Buddha 
named  Vardhamana  Jnataputra — or  in  the  language 
of  the  people,  Vaddhamana  Nataputta — in  the  very 
same  region  where  Buddhism  arose.  The  only  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  doctrines  of  the  two  men 
consists  in  the  fact  that  Vardhamana  laid  great  stress 
upon  castigation,  while  Buddha,  the  deeper  mind  of 
the  two,  declared  this  to  be  not  only  useless,  but  ab- 
solutely harmful.  But  the  point  I wish  to  make  here 
is  that  the  founder  of  the  religion  of  the  Jains,  one 


HINDU  MONISM. 


83 


that  occupies  a conspicuous  position  in  the  history  of 
Indian  religion  and  civilisation,  sprang  also  from  the 
warrior  caste. 

An  entirely  different  character  from  the  doctrines 
hitherto  discussed  is  borne  by  another  product  of  In- 
dian intellectual  life  which  comes  within  the  sphere  of 
our  consideration, — a product  known  to  most  of  my 
readers  not  even  by  name  probably,  yet  presenting  in 
content  and  development  the  most  important  prob- 
lems in  the  history  of  religion  : the  doctrine  of  the 
Bhagavatas  or  Pancharatras.  By  these  names,  the 
first  being  the  older  and  original,  a sect  of  Northern 
India  designated  itself,  the  existence  of  which  is  veri- 
fied for  the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  but  which  in 
all  probability  reaches  back  into  earlier,  pre-Buddhist 
times.  The  Bhagavatas  professed  a popular  mono- 
theism independent  of  ancient  Brahman  tradition,  and 
worshipped  the  divinity  under  various  names  : Bha- 
gavat  “the  Sublime” — from  which  word  their  own 
designation  is  derived — Narayana,  “Son  of  Man,” 
Purushottama,  “the  Supreme  Being,”  but  chiefly  as 
Krishna  Vasudeva,  i.  e.,  son  of  Vasudeva.  This  wor- 
ship bore  such  a character  that  out  of  it  was  devel- 
oped a feeling  quite  identical  with  the  Christian  feel- 
ing of  believing  love  and  devotion  to  God.  The  Indian 
word  for  this  feeling  is  “ bhakti,”  and  for  the  one  filled 
with  the  feeling,  “bhakta.”  As  no  reliable  instance 
of  the  use  of  the  word  bhakti  is  known  from  Indian 
literature  of  the  pre-Christian  time,  or  at  least  has  yet 


84 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


been  found,  some  investigators,  notably  Professor 
Weber  who  has  won  high  praise  for  his  investigation 
of  the  Krishna-cult,  are  inclined  to  regard  the  bhakti 
as  borrowed  from  Christianity.  In  various  publica- 
tions, and  especially  in  a highly  interesting  article  on 
Krishna’s  birthday  festival,  Weber  has  shown  that  nu- 
merous Christian  elements  have  crept  into  the  later 
Krishna  myths — the  outward  occasion  for  this  being 
the  similarity  in  sound  of  the  names  Krishna  and 
Christus — : the  accounts  of  the  birth  of  Christ  among 
the  shepherds,  of  the  stable,  of  the  manger  as  his 
birth-place,  and  many  other  features  of  this  sort. 
Nevertheless  I cannot  adopt  the  opinion  that  the 
bhakti  was  transplanted  from  a foreign  land  into  the 
exceedingly  fertile  soil  of  the  realm  of  Indian  thought, 
because  its  earliest  appearance  is  in  a time  for  which 
in  my  opinion  Christian  influences  in  India  have  not 
yet  been  demonstrated.  As  a detailed  discussion  of 
this  very  interesting  question  is  not  possible  without 
the  introduction  of  all  sorts  of  erudite  material,  I must 
in  this  place  limit  myself  to  the  observation  that  for 
one  who  is  intimate  with  the  intellectual  life  of  ancient 
India  the  doctrine  of  the  bhakti  is  entirely  conceivable 
as  a genuine  product  of  India.  Not  only  are  mono- 
theistic ideas  demonstrable  in  India  for  the  earliest 
antiquity,  but  the  Indian  folk-soul  has  always  been 
marked  by  a powerful  aspiration  for  the  Divine — and 
especially  so  in  the  times  we  are  here  considering — so 
that  we  need  not  be  surprised  if  this  intensely  ardent 


HINDU  MONISM. 


85 


trait  expresses  itself,  in  a popular  religion  not  resting 
on  a philosophical  basis,  as  devotion  to  God  and  love 
for  God.  The  founder  of  this  religion  was  Krishna 
Vasudeva,  who,  though  later  raised  to  the  rank  of  a 
god,  or  better,  identified  with  God,  was,  as  his  name 
and  the  legends  attached  to  it  indicated,  a member  of 
the  warrior  caste.  As  early  as  in  the  Mahabharata, 
the  great  Indian  national  epic,  Brahmanism  has  ap- 
propriated the  person  and  doctrine  of  Krishna,  and 
made  of  the  deified  hero  a form  of  the  god  Vishnu. 
Thus  in  this  case  also  Brahmanism  managed  to  renew 
its  own  vitality  by  appropriating  an  originally  un- 
Brahmanic  element. 

So  we  have  seen  that  neither  the  profound  Monism 
of  the  Upanishads,  nor  the  highly  moral  religions  of 
the  Buddhists  and  the  Jains,  nor,  finally,  the  faith  of 
the  Bhagavatas,  founded  in  pure  devotion  to  God, 
was  originated  in  the  Indian  priestly  caste.  However 
favorably  one  may  judge  of  the  achievements  accom- 
plished by  the  Brahmans  during  the  course  of  time  in 
the  most  varied  fields  of  knowledge — and  I myself 
would  be  far  from  wishing  to  belittle  their  services — 
this  much  at  least  is  established,  that  the  greatest  in- 
tellectual performances,  or  rather  almost  all  the  per- 
formances of  significance  for  mankind,  in  India,  have 
been  achieved  by  men  of  the  warrior  caste. 


INDEX. 


Abammon,  52. 

Aborigines,  Indian,  influence  of  their 
ideas  on  the  Aryans,  5. 

Absolute,  The,  70. 

Actions,  effects  of,  8. 

Advaita-vSta,  17. 

All-One,  doctrine  of  the,  32,  68. 
All-Soul,  The,  9. 

Anaxagoras,  35. 

Anaximander,  34. 

Animal  worship,  4. 

Aryans,  their  philosophy  influenced 
by  the  Indian  aborigines,  3. 
Asceticism,  14,  50. 

Atman,  9,  70. 

Atoms,  19,  23. 

Atonement,  8. 

BMar£ya«a,  17. 

Baur,  F.  C.,  48. 

Bhagavatas,  18-19,  83. 

Bhakti,  18,  83. 

Bobtlingk,  Otto,  70. 

Brahman,  9,  10,  16-17, 70  footnote,  77. 
Brahman  caste,  24-25,  58  et  seq. 
Brahmans,  their  pretensions  and 
polity,  59  et  seq.,  64  et  seq.;  philos- 
ophy of,  originates  in  the  warrior 
caste,  78  et  seq. 

Brahmanism,  12. 

Buddhism,  8,  ii  et  seq.,  46  et  seq.,  79 
et  seq. 

Carthage,  57. 

Categories  of  thought,  20. 

Caste  systems,  in  India,  58  et  seq.,  63 
et  seq. 


ChSrv3kas,  3,  25  et  seq. 

Christ,  84. 

Colebrooke,  39. 

Cosmogony,  ancient  Indian,  i et  seq 
Cycle  of  life,  7. 

Deeds  and  misdeeds,  theory  of,  7 
seq. 

Democritus,  35  et  seq. 

Desire,  7,  12. 

Deussen,  7,  8,  17. 

Dualism,  10  et  seq. 

Duty,  24. 

Eclecticism  in  Indian  philosophy,  23 
et  seq. 

Ecstasy,  14,  51. 

Egypt,  43- 
Eleatics,  32. 

Empedocles,  34  et  seq. 

Epicurus,  36  et  seq. 

Ethics,  12. 

Eternal  One,  doctrine  of,  9,  69  et  seq 
Eudaemonism,  27. 

Expiation,  7. 

Free  thought,  Indian,  24. 

Gladisch,  A.,  37. 

Gnosticism,  46  et  seq. 

God,  15,  19,  25,  32,  36. 

Gods,  Indian,  their  human  charac- 
ter, 13. 

Gough,  A.  E.,  2 footnote,  4. 
Grammarians,  Indian,  29. 

Greek  and  Indian  philosophy,  re- 
semblances between,  32  et  seq. 


88 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA, 


Hell,  27. 

Henism,  31. 

Heraclitus,  34,  54. 

Hygienic  theory  of  the  origin  of 
metempsychosis,  4. 

Ignorance,  7,  12,  17. 

Illusion,  17,  73. 

Imperishable,  The,  71. 

Indian  and  Greek  philosophy,  the  re- 
semblance between,  32  et  seq. 
Indra,  36. 

Irrational  numbers,  43. 

Jaimini,  16. 

Jains,  8,  ii  et  seq.,  82. 

Jones,  Sir  William,  37  footnote. 

Kanada,  20  et  seq. 

Kapila,  10  et  seq.,  30. 

Karman,  theory  of,  2 et  seq.,  8. 
Krish«a,  24,  83-85. 

Lassen,  46. 

Leibnitz,  30. 

Logic,  22. 

Logos,  53  et  seq. 

Manu,  law-book  of,  63. 

Materialism,  25  et  seq.,  31. 

Matter,  10,  30. 

MSyS,  17,  73. 

Merits  and  wrongs,  theory  of,  3. 
Metempsychosis,  2 et  seq.,  34  et  seq., 
41- 

Monism,  9-10,  73. 

Monism,  Hindu,  57  et  seq. 

MlmamsJ  philosophy,  16  et  seq. 
Misery,  49. 

Mixed  castes,  65  et  seq. 

Necessity,  9. 

Neo-Platonism,  49  et  seq. 

Numbers,  44-46.  See  Sa>«khya. 
NySya  system,  19,  22  et  seq. 

Oldenberg,  79-80. 

Orthodoxy,  meaning  of,  in  India,  24. 

PSwini,  29. 

Parmenides,  32. 


Patanjali,  14  et  seq. 

Persia,  the  intermediator  of  Indian 
thought,  38. 

Pessimism,  ii  et  seq. 

Philo,  54. 

Philosophy,  beginnings  of,  in  ancient 
India,  i et  seq.;  in  ancient  Greece 
32- 

Plato,  38  footnote,  41. 

Plotinus,  49  et  seq. 

Porphyry,  51. 

Priesthood,  58  et  seq.,  79. 

Pythagoras,  39  et  seq. 

Retribution,  8. 

Ritualism,  2. 

Roer,  E.,  41  footnote. 

ROth,  E.,  37. 

Sacrifices,  Brahman,  61  et  seq.,  69 
78  et  seq. 

Salvation,  7,  18,  19,  22,  27. 

S4?«khya  philosophy,  10  et  seq.,  14 
29  et  seq.,  41,  43  et  seq.,  46  et  seq. 
Sawtsara,  6,  7. 

Scherman,  L. , 2 footnote. 

Schluter,  C.  B.,  37. 

Schroeder,  L.  von,  15,  42,  64. 

Self,  The,  9,  71,  75. 

Shiva,  or  Qiva,  23-24 ; sects  of,  29. 
Sin,  Indian  theory  of,  6. 

Son  of  Man,  83. 

Soul,  to,  II,  12  footnote,  22,  26-27,  3° 
47- 

Sound,  eternity  of.  See  Words. 
Sparta,  57. 

Spiritualism,  31. 

St.  Hilaire,  Barth61emy,  40. 

Subject  and  object,  unity  of,  10. 

Tat  tvajn  asi^  10. 

Tawney,  35. 

Thales,  33. 

Theism,  8-g,  15,  23. 

Thibaut,  G.,  16. 

Transmigration  of  souls,  2 et  seq.,  34 
et  seq.,  41. 

Ueberweg,  38  footnote. 

Upanisbads,  philosophy  of,  2,  9,  10 
i5i  i7i  32,  69  et  seq. 


INDEX. 


89 


Vich,  53  et  seq. 

Vaigeshika  system,  19  et  seq. 
VSsudeva,  19. 

Vedanta  system,  7,  8,  i6,  17,  32. 
Vedas,  i et  seq.,  28,  33,  58  et  seq. 
Vedic  view  of  life,  3. 

VishKU,  19,  85. 

Vish«uitic  sects,  19,  29. 

Voltaire,  3. 

Warrior  caste,  59  et  seq. 

Warriors,  Hindu,  authors  of  Hindu 
monism,  73  et  seq. 


Weber,  42,  53,  59.  84. 

Wilson,  40. 

Wisdom  of  the  Brahmans,  58  et  seq 
68  et  seq. 

Words,  16,  29. 

Works,  theory  of,  7 et  seq.,  16. 
Xenophanes,  32. 

Yoga  philosophy,  14  et  seq.,  51,  53. 


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good  paper,  from  large  type. 

The  Religion  of  Science  Library,  by  its  extraordinarily  reasonable  price 
will  place  a large  number  of  valuable  books  within  the  reach  of  all  readers 
The  following  have  already  appeared  in  the  series : 

No.  I.  The  Religion  of  Science,  By  Paul  Carus.  25c. 

2.  Three  Introductory  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Thought.  By  F.  Max 

Muller.  25c. 

3.  Three  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  La^tguage.  By  F.  Max  Muller.  25c. 

4.  The  Diseases  of  Personality . By  Th.  Ribot.  25c. 

5.  The  Psychology  of  Attention.  By  Th.  Ribot.  25c. 

6.  The  Psychic  Life  of  Micro-Organisms.  By  Alfred  Binet.  25c. 

7.  The  Nature  of  the  State.  By  Paul  Carus.  15c. 

8.  On  Double  Consciousness.  By  Alfred  Binet.  15c. 

9.  Fmidamental  Problems.  By  Paul  Carus.  50c. 

10.  The  Diseases  of  the  Will.  By  Th.  Ribot.  25c. 

11.  The  Origin  of  Language.  By  Ludwig  Noire.  15c. 

12.  The  Free  Trade  Struggle  in  Eyigland.  By  M.  M.  Trumbull.  25c. 

13.  Wheelbarrow  on  the  Labor  Question.  By  M.  M.  Trumbull.  35c. 

14.  The  Gospel  of  Buddha.  By  Paul  Carus.  35c. 

15.  The  Primer  of  Philosophy,  By  Paul  Carus.  25c. 

16.  On  Memory y and  The  Specific  Energies  of  the  Nervous  System.  By  Prof 

Ewald  Hering.  15c. 

17.  The  Redemption  of  the  Brahman.  A Tale  of  Hindu  Life.  By  Richard 

Garbe.  25c. 

18.  An  Examination  of  Weismannism.  By  G.  J.  Romanes.  35c. 

19.  071  Ger77iinal  Selection.  By  August  Weismann.  25c. 

20.  Lovers  Three  Thousa?id  Years  Ago.  By  T.  A.  Goodwin.  15c. 

11.  Popular  Scientific  Lectures.  By  Ernst  Mach.  35c. 

22.  Aficient  Itidia  : Its  La7iguage  a7id  Religions.  By  H.  Oldenberg.  25c 

23.  The  Prophets  of  Ancient  Israel.  By  Prof.  C.  H.  Cornill.  25c. 

24.  Homilies  of  Scie7ice.  By  Paul  Carus.  35c. 

25.  Thoughts  071  Religio7i.  By  G.  J.  Romanes.  50  cents. 

26.  The  Philosophy  of  A7icient  India.  By  Prof.  Richard  Garbe.  25c. 


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